Projects

This project is focused on converting readily available aryl sources, such as simple arene, arylboron, and aryl iodide building blocks, into benchstable aryl "onium" linchpin reagents. To learn more, check out this theme on the Publications page. For easier use, the aryl(TMP)iodonium reagents are commercially available from Tokyo Chemical Industries and Otava Chemicals 

This project harnesses the metal-like reactivity of I(III) to undergo reductive ligand coupling (the main group equivalent of reductive elmination) for nucleophile arylation. We specifically use unsymmetrical aryl(TMP)iodonium salts in these reactions and have developed arylation methods primarily for N- and O-nucleophiles. To learn more, check out this theme on the Publications page.

The aim of this project is to improve access to aryne reactive intermediates for use in organic synthesis. We use aryl(Mes)iodonium and aryl thianthrenium salts as aryl "onium" intermediates to synthetically link simple arene and arylboron compounds with arynes. We also use aryl(TMP)iodonium and aryl(Mes)iodonium salts for mild aryne generation with weak base. To learn more, check out this theme on the Publications  page.

This project provides a deeper understanding of the link between molecular structure, bonding, and chemical reactivity for the aryl "onium" reagents described above. We combine computational (DFT) studies and analysis of kinetic and thermodynamic phenomena to study mechanisms and develop reactivity scales. To learn more, check out this theme on the Publications page.