Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Chemistry

Committee Chair

Jessica Hoover

Committee Member

Carsten Milsmann

Committee Member

Bjorn Soderberg

Committee Member

Lori Hazelhurst

Committee Member

Brian Popp

Abstract

Transition metal-catalyzed decarboxylative coupling reactions have received considerable attention in recent years as a method to obtain biaryl compounds. However, the oxidative version of this reaction class is still in its infancy, limited to specific substitution patterns on the benzoic acids – ortho-substitution - used in these transformations. This thesis describes our attempts to understand the key decarboxylation step of this important class of reactions. The first chapter of this thesis discusses an introduction into cross-coupling reactions, decarboxylative cross-coupling reactions, and outlines relevant physical organic parameters. The following chapter details the synthesis of a series of (1,10-phenanthroline)silver(benzoate) complexes. This chapter also describes their usage in the development of a model of the decarboxylation of the (phen)Ag(benzoate) complexes enabling the prediction of new benzoic acids to be used in oxidative decarboxylative coupling reactions. The last chapter discusses our recent progress on the extension of our decarboxylation methodology to silver heteroaromatic acid carboxylates. This final chapter also describes our preliminary attempts to correlate the rates of decarboxylation of Ag(heteroaromatic carboxylate) complexes with various electronic parameters.

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