This morning, Professor John Hartwig was awarded the “”https://oasys2.confex.com/acs/231nm/techprogram/S19718.HTM">ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry." In his talk, he discussed a number of recent results from his laboratory, including the insertion of an iridium complex into an N-H bond of ammonia, the intermolecular hydroamination of vinylarenes, an iridium catalyst able to perform enantioselective allylic aminations, and some of his recent mechanistic studies of the palladium-catalyzed amination of aryl halides (a collaboration between Hartwig’s group, Donna Blackmond’s group at Imperial College, and Stephen Buchwald’s group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Earlier in the session, Robert Bergman talked about some of the work his group has done (in collaboration with Kenneth Raymond‘s group) which involved C-H bond activation of aldehydes using an iridium catalyst and guest/host chemistry – maybe it’s just Hartwig’s and Bergman’s enthusiasm rubbing off on me, but I think that iridium (which was “”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium">named after the Latin word for rainbow (iris …) because many of its salts are strongly colored") might be my new favorite transition metal…
Joshua
Joshua Finkelstein (Associate Editor, Nature)
I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the hotel bar after this symposium. You know these players in C-H activation have the goods on the Sames-Sezen story and informed opinions of how Columbia, JACS, and the ACS should deal with the issue of scientific misconduct.
Actually, Gk. iris (gen. iridos) could be cognate with Latin viridis and this would explain the panoramic effect of such things as verdigris, chatoyant, etc. I have been frustrated in my efforts to publish this anywhere else so it might as well see the light here.
Oh, and Buñuel’s Viridiana might deserve a mention too…
Too bad iridium is so expensive (well over $100/g for IrCl3).