Special Edition: uOttawa Chemistry Graduate Student Association (CGSA) & Tito Scaiano Fund

Prof. Suzanne C. Bart,* Tyler S. Collins, Ezra Coughlin, and Matthias Zeller

Abstract: Our laboratory has recently demonstrated the synthesis of uranium imido [U(NR)x] complexes bearing one, two, three, or four imido ligands in the absence of ancillary ligands using organoazides and a strong reductant. These complexes show unique electronic structures, in that loading multiple imido substituents on a single metal center results in very activated U=N bonds. This strategy represents a useful method by which uranium-element multiple bonds can be activated. These materials are useful building blocks, and have been used to synthesize the first metal pentakis(imido) species, which has been spectroscopically and structurally characterized.

Speaker Bio: Suzanne C. Bart graduated from the University of Delaware with a B.S. with Distinction in Chemistry in 2001. During her college studies, she developed an interest in inorganic and organometallic chemistry, which led her to Cornell University, where she earned her Ph.D. in 2006 with Prof. Paul J. Chirik developing homogeneous iron catalysts with redox non-innocent ligands. Following this, Suzanne moved to Germany to expand her synthetic and analytical skills by studying the reactivity of sterically pressured uranium compounds for small molecule activation as an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg under the direction of Prof. Dr. Karsten Meyer. In 2008, she moved back to the United States, where she became an Assistant Professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. She was promoted to Associate Professor in July, 2014 and to Professor in July, 2018. Her research interests include organometallic transformations and small molecule activation mediated by organoactinide species, with an emphasis on alkyl and redox-active ligands. Suzanne has been the recipient of an NSF CAREER award (2012), and has been named a 2012 Cottrell Scholar, a 2014 Organometallics Young Investigator Fellow, and a 2015 Rising Star from the Women’s Chemist Committee of the American Chemical Society.