Extra Credit Assignment for CHEM 641 NAME _____________________
Due Tuesday,November 28, 2006. Each problem is worth five (5) points)
The questions below reflect topics we have not covered (yet) in lecture, and may not actually be able to cover. You will have to do some research onn thesre topics. Much of the informatioin will be rreadily available on the internet, while for a few of the questions you may have to consult an inorganic textbook, or a book on mechanisms of catalytic reactions using transition metals. Answer your questions on sepaarate sheets of paper and staple them to this sheet.
- What is an "agostic" interaction? How can it end up stabilizing certain configurations of alkyls in metal alkyl bonding?
- Explain the ideas of "electronic unsaturation" and "coordinative unsaturation" and why they are important in catalytic mechanisms.
- Provide a detailed mechanism of the Wacker process to produce acetaldehyde (ethanal) from ethylene and oxygen. How is this mechanism made into a catalytic cycle?
- What metals and their compounds are nornmally used as catalysts in Fischer-Tropsch catalysis?
- What industrial process uses a silver catalyst? What is the major use of silver compounds world-wide?
- Copper and its compounds are often used for organic coupling reactions. Detail at least two of these organic coupling reactions.
- Anhydrous cadmium chloride (CdCl2) can be used with a Grignard reagent to do what type of reaction that a Grignard reagent alone cannot do?
