About Professor Fehlner

Thomas P. Fehlner was born in 1937 in a small town in upstate New York and received his BS degree from Siena College in 1959. After completing a Ph.D thesis and a one year postdoctoral under the direction of Professor Walter Koski at the Johns Hopkins University, he took up a position of Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Notre Dame in 1964. Promotion through the ranks to Professor in 1975 and Grace-Rupley Professor of Chemistry in 1988 followed. While at Notre Dame he has mentored 40 postdoctorals, 18 Ph.D. students, and 4 MS students carrying out research in the areas of fast reactions of free borane by mass spectrometry, ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy of high temperature molecules and cluster, main group-transition element synthetic chemistry, single source precursors to thin films, and mixed-valence complexes as building blocks for molecular electronics. For over 40 years his work has been supported by several agencies but principally by the National Science Foundation. Research accomplishments are described in 19 review chapters, 13 proceedings, and 240 primary research articles. In addition he has edited one monograph, “Inorganometallic Chemistry” and delivered a graduate text, “Molecular Cluster Chemistry. A Bridge to Solid State Chemistry”, coauthored with J-F Halet and J-Y Saillard, to Cambridge Press in mid 2006. He served as Department Chair from 1982-88. His honors include: Guggenheim Fellow, 1988, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship, 1992, "Master Graduate Student Mentor", University Notre Dame, 1999, and Leverhulme Visiting Professor, University of Bath, 2004. He became Emeritus Professor, August 2006, in order to take up watercolors as well as to devote more time to the Buchanan Preservation Society that operates a water-powered 19th century mill.

A Systematic Chemistry of Metallaboranes. From Early to Late Transition Metals

In an era when life and material sciences dominate the funding of chemical research, what possible justification can there be for chemistry that even inorganic textbook writers pass over rather quickly? But wait! Chemistry is all about element combinations. True the number of known combinations is vast and provides a fertile field for application in the “hot” areas but the number that remains to be discovered is likewise a large one. Properties of substances depend in a fundamental sense on the elements from which they are constituted. Application of substances is all about properties; hence, the success of any search for a solution to a problem depends largely on the number of element combinations present in the library of known substances. It follows that the continuous development of the synthesis of new element combinations, relevant to a contemporary pressing problem or not, is essential to the continued health of the discipline. It is the purpose of this lecture to convince you that metallaborane chemistry, the chemistry of boron and transition element combinations, has moved well beyond the gee wiz stage of “Isn’t that an amazing structure!”—that it has a coherence and value sufficient to establish it as a complement to the organometallic chemistry of carbon and transition element combinations. Specifically, the reaction of monocyclopentadienyl metal halides or hydrides with monoboranes provides a general route to metallaboranes containing from one to three transition metals and one to ten boron atoms. Characterized by incorporation of transition metals from groups 5-9, good yields, control of stoichiometry, utilization of commercially available reagents, the method has also been successfully used in a senior undergraduate synthesis laboratory. The synthetic method provides new compositions and forms (clusters) as well as an entrée to systematic reaction chemistry with organic substrates. The reactivities observed are reminiscent of both boron hydride chemistry and metal cluster chemistry but also distinctively different in a number of ways. Similarities and contrasts with organometallic chemistry are observed with examples of stoichiometric metal promoted reactions as well as reactions homogenously catalyzed by metallaboranes.

Friday, April 13th 2007
• Meet the Speaker: 3:30PM, 1015 McPherson Lab
• Lecture: 4PM, 1015 McPherson Lab
• Cocktail Hour: 5:30pm-6:30pm, The Blackwell
• Dinner: 6:30pm, The Blackwell

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