Research Interest

REDOX REACTIONS OF TRANSITION METAL COMPLEXES, PROTON-COUPLED ELECTRON TRANSFER, AND SURFACE MODIFIED ELECTRODES
Proton-coupled electron transfer reactions play essential roles in a variety of aqueous and biological redox processes; however, the overall redox mechanisms can be quite complex, involving multiple electron and proton transfers. Early work in our laboratory focused on the design of simple models for proton-coupled electron transfer reactions. By limiting the inner coordination sphere to one ionizable proton, we obtained complexes which exhibit a single one-electron/one-proton redox couple over relatively broad pH and potential regions. Extending this chemistry to bimetallic complexes required the development of a family of ruthenium(II) complexes based on 2,6-bis-(N-pyrazoyl)pyridine and beta-diketonate ligands that exhibit reversible Ru(III/II) couples with potentials than can be tuned over a range of 600 mV by systematically varying the substituents on the ligands. Given the ease of tuning the Ru(III/II) potentials, these complexes are attractive candidates for the redox-active monolayers, and subsequent work in our laboratory has involved the preparation of complexes with pendant thiol groups that can be used to form self-assembled monolayers at gold surfaces.