Exploring Reactive Species in the Mechanism of Oxygen Reduction using Pentadentate Ligand-Supported Cobalt Complexes

Date
2016
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Abstract
Building on the idea of a pentapyridine ligand, the Piers group has recently focused on the development of a family of boron-substituted pentadentate ligands (B2Pz4Py). This work will describe the expansion of preliminary research completed by Dr. Denis Spasyuk, involving newly synthesized cobalt complexes coordinated with a dianionic pentadentate phenyl-substituted diborate ligand. Instead of continuing with the phenyl-substituted ligand, the synthetic procedure for the ligand was adapted to make a tolyl-substituted version. The synthesis and characterization of cobalt(II) complexes and their propensity to bind O2 forming a binuclear μ-peroxo cobalt(III) complex was explored. The binding of oxygen was found to be reversible and that the O2 was activated towards protonation and that reduction of the products lead back to cobalt(II). The relevance of this chemistry to the Oxygen Reduction Reaction (ORR) was discussed. The catalytic ability of the complex to reduce oxygen was measured and preliminary results showed comparable activity to the previously studied oxygen reduction cobalt catalysts.
Description
Keywords
Chemistry--Inorganic
Citation
Fairburn, L. (2016). Exploring Reactive Species in the Mechanism of Oxygen Reduction using Pentadentate Ligand-Supported Cobalt Complexes (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26099