Research

Hybrid inorganic-organic materials such as Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) show a wide range of physical and chemical properties that can be tuned by selecting and tailoring the metal nodes and organic linkers. Our research interests are focused on hybrid materials that display integrated properties of redox activity, electrical conductivity, porosity, and magnetism, which have potential for spintronics, batteries, supercapacitors, and data storage devices.

Most MOFs utilize long, rigid linkers containing carboxylates and diamagnetic metal centers to obtain robust, porous structures. However, this approach usually results in weak electronic and magnetic coupling between metal nodes, leading to insulating materials without interesting electronic or magnetic properties. In pursuit of novel multifunctional hybrid materials, we propose several strategies: (1) use of S-based linkers, (2) use of redox-active nodes and linkers, and (3) installation of radical linkers.

The Anderson lab focuses efforts on applying these strategies for highly conductive, solution-processable synthetic metals, with tuning the conductivity and other properties being a key component of this research.

There has been a major spike of interest in the development and study of emissive molecules in the near IR (NIR), NIR-I, and NIR-II regions. These fall into the tissue-transparent region, meaning relatively low quantum yields still result in high resolution images. While the FDA-approved, currently existing NIR-lumiphores, are largely complex organic scaffolds, often modified for aqueous solubility, we are developing a new class of organometallic emitters based on diradical or radical cores bound to transition metal centers.

The development of NIR-emitters utilizing highly covalent sulfur-based ligands has resulted in highly tunable and biologically stable emission. The Anderson lab is  interested both in optimizing the biological applications of these lumiphores as well as probing fundamental photophysical properties of this unusual emissive scaffold. Pushing past the energy-gap-law into brighter emission in the NIR-I/NIR-II regions, is another key area of development.

Additionally, investigations of these highly covalent molecular complexes has led to complementary investigations into the modulation of magnetic properties and the invoking of strong coupling between paramagnetic metal centers.

Controlling the movement of protons and electrons is fundamental to harnessing chemical reactions towards useful products. While some precious metal catalysts are highly effective at mediating multi-proton/multi-electron processes, these types of reactions are often significantly more difficult when using more economical first-row metals. To lessen the burden on these metals, metal-ligand cooperativity is often used where the ligand can also participate in proton or electron transfer to more efficiently carry out these multi-proton or multi-electron processes. This biomimetic strategy is well-precedented in enzymatic systems, who similarly utilize abundant metal centers.

Few ligand systems incorporate both redox-activity and pendant protons to enable H-atom or H2 transfer from the ligand to mediate very challenging catalytic transformations. We have been studying diimino- and dihydrazono-pyrrole ligands to investigate this type of reactivity. We are interested in expanding this chemistry into any type of H-atom transfer catalysis, including but not limited to: hydrogenations, semi-hydrogenations, aerobic oxidations, isomerization reactivity,   hydroalkylations, and more.