UCLA

Ferrocene chelating ligands provide good stability of the resulting metal complexes and redox-switchable control in chemical processes catalyzed by those complexes. In comparison to traditional di-substituted ferrocene tetradentate ligands, mono-substituted tridentate ferrocene ligands may form metal complexes with a more open coordination sphere around the metal center that may allow an increased preference for substrate coordination. In addition, a mono-substituted ferrocene ligand allows the investigation of the through bond influence of the ferrocenyl group on catalytic metal centers by increasing the metal-iron distance. In this thesis, the design, synthesis, and characterization by 1H NMR spectroscopy of a novel mono-substituted ferrocene ligand are described. To explore its ability to support metal complexes with high activity and redox-switchable in polymerization reactions, yttrium alkoxide and aluminum alkyl complexes were also synthesized and characterized by 1H NMR spectroscopy.