Singly- and doubly-bonded Group 13 organometallics based on sterically demanding s-hydrindacene ligands

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Jens Beckmann; Professor Dr. Robert Kretschmer
• Subject Area: Inorganic Molecular Chemistry - Synthesis and Characterisation
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 579592567

The aim of the joint research project is to develop new organometallic compounds in which either boron, aluminium, gallium or indium is singly or doubly bound to a carbon atom. This unusual bonding situation and the resulting influence on the frontier molecular orbitals will be used to enable new reactions and, in the long term, catalytic transformations with readily available elements of group 13. New ligands will be established first and their synthesis is subsequently optimised. In a next step, the closed-shell element(I) compounds and then the open-shell element(II) compounds will be synthesised, isolated and characterised. The molecules obtained will then be used to develop new compounds with previously unknown metal-carbon and metal-heteroatom multiple bonds, whose reactivity towards saturated and unsaturated substrates will be investigated. In the preliminary work carried out by both groups, the fundamental viability of the concept has already been demonstrated, as has the unusual and promising reactivity of the singly bonded trielediyls.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants