Overview
Professor Robert Fay is engaged in authoring widely used general chemistry textbooks.
Research
Our research is concerned with the synthesis, structure, and stereochemistry of inorganic and organometallic compounds, especially metal chelate complexes. The following projects illustrate our interests.
1. An important problem in coordination chemistry is the mechanism of molecular rearrangements of metal chelate compounds. Do metal chelates rearrange by metal-ligand bond rupture processes (chelate-ring opening) or by polytopal rearrangements (twist mechanisms)? What are the factors that favor one mechanism over the other?
2. Relatively little is known about the coordination chemistry of group 4 elements in low oxidation states. We propose to synthesize some new low-valent coordination compounds of titanium, zirconium, and hafnium, and to develop their structural and reaction chemistry. Our approach will use chelating ligands that are strong p- acceptors.