Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Current research in the field of Main Group chemistry provides substantial insight into the way molecules are held together (chemical structure and bonding). This greatly assists in the assessment of such compounds as useable materials. Although investigations of this type are primarily an academic study, many of the results have translated into substantial economic benefit. Main group elements are playing increasingly prominent roles in electronic materials, pharmaceuticals and new polymers. The benefits for the construction of new main group element compounds are two fold: (a) an increased understanding of the fundamentals of structure, bonding and reactivity; and (b) this knowledge can be used to assess potential applications for value-added products. In this context, the isolation of new compounds that contain charged main group centres, or main group centres in unconventional bonding arrangements are desirable because of their high reactivity. In this context, our group has, over the last two years, initiated a research program that centres on investigating the fundamental chemistry of a variety of main group elements, as well as developing the potential new applications of our findings. Within this common theme, three sub areas of discovery have emerged and we are defining new directions in (a) The identification and application of unusual chalcogen compounds (Chalcogen = S, Se, Te); (b) Synthesis and applications of ionophilic materials: Ionic liquids with unusual functionalities; and, (c) The synthesis of unprecedented neutral, strained, main group element bridged cobaltoarenophane complexes.