Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews
December is a gift-giving month in many cultures. This month we present some gift book suggestions for your favorite chemist. The first three books reviewed are large format coffee-table books. Written by and for chemists, Nicolaou and Montagnon’s Molecules That Changed the World is an exploration of natural products synthesis. Two books by Theodore Gray target a more general audience: Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do at Home—But Probably Shouldn’t and The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe. And for your favorite organometallic chemist, we present Landmarks in Organo-Transition Metal Chemistry—A Personal View by Helmut Werner. Happy pages to all! CBF
Landmarks in Organo-Transition Metal Chemistry—A Personal View (Profiles in Inorganic Chemistry Series) by Helmut Werner Springer Science: New York, 2009. 354 pp. ISBN 978-0387098470. $119 reviewed by Kenneth M. Nicholas
The field of organotransition metal chemistry, the offspring of an interdisciplinary marriage between organic and inorganic chemistry, was born in the early 1950s with the discovery of ferrocene—featuring an iron atom sandwiched between two cyclopentadienyl (organic) slices of bread. In the ensuing years organometallic chemistry has had a major impact on both the academic and industrial chemical worlds, providing a continuous flow of discoveries of novel compounds, reactions, and concepts finding important applications in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and materials industries. These impacts have been recognized by the award of several Nobel Prizes—to Ziegler and Natta (coordination polymerization); Wilkinson and Fischer (ferrocene, metal-carbenes); Noyori, Sharpless, and Knowles (asymmetric catalysis); and Grubbs, Schrock, and
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Cheryl Baldwin Frech University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, OK 73034
Chauvin (olefin metathesis). These major contributions, along with many lesser known chemical developments in the field, are authoritatively chronicled in this book by Helmut Werner, a recently retired professor and an active research contributor to organometallic chemistry during its golden age from the 1960s through the 1990s. In the words of the author, the book is “neither a chemistry textbook nor a biography” but is best described as an account of major (and many minor) discoveries and aspects of organotransition metal chemistry from a personal and historical perspective. An interesting human face is put on the research findings through the author’s inclusion of numerous biographical sketches and anecdotes about the major pioneers of the field, many of whom Werner knew. This hybrid feature of the book helps to give readers a broad perspective of the development of a major field of modern chemistry and the people who led the way. The chemical content is reported in a review-article style with narrative plus equations and structures at a level understandable by junior or senior undergraduates (in the U.S.) and nonorganometallic graduate students, faculty, and practicing chemists. The book’s contents are organized into the following chapters with some highlights. Chapter 2 is the author’s autobiographical story beginning with his youth, early education, and family life during World War II and the subsequent Communist rule in East Germany. His escape to West Germany to complete his Ph.D. under E. O. Fischer, when faced with an order to join an industrial “semi-military worker’s brigade” in the East, is remarkable. In Chapter 3 (The Nineteenth Century— Accidental Discoveries) Werner starts to chronicle the slowgrowing roots leading to the organometallic explosion of the late 20th century, including the pioneering work of the European founding fathers: Zeise (first alkene–metal complexes), Frankland (organozinc compounds), Grignard (organomagnesium reagents), and Mond (metal carbonyls). Chapter 4 is devoted to metal-carbonyls, which typify the synergistic interaction between low oxidation state metals and pi-bonding ligands. Here Werner provides a historical tour from the early 1900s to the present for these important precursors to other organometallics. The chapter ends with biographical sketches of major contributors, including W. Hieber and F. A. Cotton. Chapter 5 begins with the discovery of ferrocene and the race to establish its novel structure and reactivity (by Pauson, Wilkinson, Fischer, and Woodward), and continues with the belated identification of Heine’s arene–chromium complexes, and the rapid expansion to include metal complexes of other pi ligands, including of the unstable cyclobutadiene (by Pettit). More recent developments to produce and characterize triple (and higher)-decker sandwiches (organometallic “Big Macs”) are highlighted in Chapter 6. The preparation of and bonding in alkene–metal complexes is chronicled in Chapter 7, highlighted by the contributions of M. Dewar, G. Wilke, and M. L. H. Green. Unfortunately, there is little coverage of the reactivity or catalytic chemistry of the alkene complexes (e.g., the Wacker process) and no mention of the rich chemistry of alkyne complexes. In Chapter 8, the chemistry of metal carbenes and carbynes (“the taming of nonexisting molecules”) is highlighted. Included is the pioneering work of the E. O. Fischer group (and
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 86 No. 12 December 2009 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • © Division of Chemical Education
Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews his chemical descendents) and the American school headed by R. Schrock and R. Grubbs, the basis for Nobel Prizes first to Fischer (in part) and later to Schrock, Grubbs, and Chauvin for the alkene metathesis reaction. In the final chapter (9), the chemistry of metal alkyls (aryls) is highlighted, including the isolation of the first stable transition metal derivatives, and the evolution of ideas about the factors important to their stability. Only a very brief mention of the importance of these “true” organometallics in catalysis is given, an area that has had an immense impact on organic chemistry and synthesis during the past 20 years. It is noteworthy that the index lists scientists’ names and pages cited therein, but no chemical terms, demonstrating the historical and biographical emphasis of the book. Readers interested in the history of the important molecules of organometallic chemistry and their discoverers can find more in-depth descriptions in the series of cover essays written by Dietmar Seyferth in Organometallics (1). I see this book being primarily of interest to advanced level students (undergraduate and graduate), faculty, and practicing chemists, particularly in the inorganic and, to a lesser extent, organic fields. It could be a useful and unique resource for courses in the inorganic and organometallic areas because of its historical and biographical information and perspectives. I found it well-written, interesting, and enjoyable reading.
Literature Cited 1. Seyferth, D. The Grignard Reagents. Organometallics, 2009, 28 (6), 1598–1605.
Supporting JCE Online Material
http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2009/Dec/abs1374_2.html Keywords Full text (HTML and PDF)
Kenneth M. Nicholas is in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019;
[email protected].
Note: Ningfeng Zhao would like to acknowledge his coworkers’ contributions to the WileyPLUS with CATALYST review published in J. Chem. Educ. 2009, 86, 692. Sheila Armentrout, Scott Kirkby, Reza Mohseni, and Jeffrey Wardeska joined Zhao in a team project to redesign General Chemistry at East Tennessee State University. CBF
© Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 86 No. 12 December 2009 • Journal of Chemical Education
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