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Organometallics in 2019: It is Elementary
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elcome to 2019! It promises to be a special year for chemistry and Organometallics. To celebrate 150 years of Mendeleev’s periodic system and the 100th birthday of IUPAC, 2019 has been designated the International Year of the Periodic Table.1 Giving our beloved elements a bit more media and public attention is always welcome, especially the effort of the United Nations to raise global awareness of “how chemistry promotes sustainable development and provides solutions to global challenges in energy, education, agriculture, and health”.2 This past October, I had the honor of attending a symposium in Seville, Spain, in celebration of Professor Ernesto Carmona’s 70th birthday and distinguished career in organometallic chemistry.3 As part of the event, Organometallics published a Special Issue comprised of a collection of papers from authors with a personal or professional connection to Ernesto, who is at the Institute for Chemical Research (IIQ) at the University of Seville (Figure 1). The symposium was a
Figure 2. EuChemS periodic table highlighting elemental usage and scarcity.
presented. This design purposefully raises awareness about the consequences of our consumerism lifestyles on our natural resources. The goal, according to Cole-Hamilton, is to see this version of the Periodic Table in every classroom around the world. To that end, the EuChemS table has been published in a host of languages and is available free to download along with user guides for teachers and anyone interested.4 I encourage all of our readers to help spread these important messages and our joy of the elements in 2019. One of my favorite aspects of organometallic chemistry is how we, as a community and as a journal, embrace chemistry from the vantage of practically all of the elements on the Periodic Table. It is often a badge of honor among our chemistry friends to work with an element that has not been visited by your colleagues, or if you are the person on your team who has worked with the largest number of elements. In my career, I am proud to say I studied the organometallic chemistry of rhodium and iridium as an undergraduate, moved on to groups 3−5 as a graduate student, group 6 as a postdoc, and am now in the first row of the transition metals as an independent researcherwith a little boron and silicon thrown in for good measure. Almost every issue of Organometallics features a spectrum of chemistry covering all those elements and more, from maingroup elements to transition metals to lanthanides and actinideseffectively the whole Periodic Table. Our recent Special Issue on “Organometallic Complexes of Electropositive Elements for Selective Synthesis” coedited by Associate Editor Laurel Schaefer of the University of British Columbia, Professor Ian Tonks of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and Professor Michael Hill of the University of Bath highlighted the vibrant chemistry of early transition metals, the lanthanides, and group 1 and 2 elements (Figure 3). As pointed out in the accompanying editorial (Organometallics
Figure 1. The October 22 Special Issue of Organometallics celebrated the 70th birthday and distinguished career of Professor Ernesto Carmona (left), and at a symposium in his honor in Seville a copy of the cover was presented to Ernesto by IIQ Professor Juan Cámpora and yours truly (upper right). Ernesto Carmona and M. L. H. Green (lower right) enjoy the event (photo credit: Paul Chirik).
terrific display of cutting-edge organometallic chemistry and catalysis, mixed in with reminiscences of Ernesto’s career and terrific Spanish food and hospitality. The event highlighted something important and difficult to achieve: Ernesto’s ability to inspire generations of chemists and be universally revered and admired by his friends and colleagues, so much so they traveled from far-off places to join the celebration. What does any of that have to do with the International Year of the Periodic Table? Read on. Professor David ColeHamilton of the University of St. Andrews, in addition to his work on ruthenium-catalyzed reduction of esters and amides, presented work from his time as president of EuChemS on a more unique, and hopefully thought provoking, representation of the Periodic Table (Figure 2).4 The relative abundance, usage, and conflict status of each element is © XXXX American Chemical Society
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.9b00001 Organometallics XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
Organometallics
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that are designed to be resource materials not only for researchers but also for students and instructors of organometallic chemistry seeking up-to-date resources for classes. Professor Phil Power and his team at the University of California, Davis, published a thorough account of the bonding, particularly the role of second-order Jahn−Teller distortions, on main-group multiply bonded compounds. These molecules are a centerpiece of my first-year graduate course on inorganic chemistry and bonding and having Phil’s article will be a great resource for the students (and the instructor!). Mu-Hyun (“Mookie”) Baik of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and his coworkers published an important perspective on that application of density functional theory to organometallic compounds and reactions and how to avoid common pitfalls. Given the everexpanding use of computations in research, this Tutorial will certainly prove useful for many of our readers. To be sure, the transition metals remain in the hearts and minds of many organometallic chemists and the readers of Organometallics. It is only fitting that Professor Peter Wolczanski of Cornell University published an epic tome of 1,2-addition and elimination with early-metal imido complexes. In my opinion, this is one of the more undervalued fundamental transformations in organometallic chemistry and Wolczanski’s Tutorial provides an essential resource to raise awareness of the importance and impact of this chemistry, particularly in C−H activation. In yet another notable Tutorial, Dominik Munz of Friedrich-Alexander University ErlangenNürnberg published an informative Tutorial about carbene ligands. This Tutorial no doubt will serve as a user’s guide for applications of these important ligands to a host of new chemistries and catalytic applications. In general, Tutorials are some of our most-read content. As always, if you have a suggestion for a topic, feel free to contact the Editorial Office at chirik-offi
[email protected]. Of course, the most precious elements that constitute Organometallics are people! In this vein, I would like to thank Professor Alexander Miller of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the aforementioned Ian Tonks for contributing an important Editorial on laboratory safety and their efforts with The Safety Net, an online resource designed to curate standard operating procedures and to share best practices within the community. It is essential we continue to have a dialogue about laboratory safety, share our experiences with each other, and create environments where open and frank discussions are commonplace. I believe Organometallics is
Figure 3. Cover art from the Organometallics Special Issue on electropositive elements.
2018, 37, 4311−4312), these elements have foolishly fallen out of vogue due to preconceived notions about reactivity and handling. As the contributions to the issue highlight, examples of spectacular reactivity, benchtop-friendly catalysts, catalytic redox chemistry, and interesting structural chemistry are reestablishing these elements in contemporary research. The papers in the special issue, in combination with the recent report of s-block carbonyl complexes5 and the rich reaction chemistry6 recently reported for these compounds, illustrate that organometallic chemistry has much to offer at the far left of the periodic table. The Tutorials we published in 2018 also represent the diversity of elements of interest to the Organometallics community (Figure 4). Recall these articles are pedagogically focused accounts of a research areainstructional reviews
Figure 4. Tutorials published in Organometallics in 2018. B
DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.9b00001 Organometallics XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
Organometallics
Editor's Page
structural journal to one that now includes broader and more applied cross section of contributions. We wish Deryn well in her future endeavors and look forward to seeing her manuscripts in future issues of the journal. Her recommendations for high-end cocktail bars and speakeasies at ACS National Meetings will still be highly sought after. While no mere mortal could ever replace Deryn, we are pleased to announce Kathrin Hopmann of UiTThe Arctic University of Norway has joined our team of Associate Editors. You can read more about Kathrin’s background in a recent ACS Axial post. Kathrin’s expertise in computational chemistry is a welcome addition to our editorial cohort as the number of submissions that are purely theoretical or contain calculations continues to grow. In closing, I wish to thank all of our readers, authors, and reviewers for a great 2018. We are also glad to have real gems on the ACS StaffManaging Editor, Stephen Ritter and Coordinating Editor Jonathan Darmon. I am thankful for their daily efforts to keep Organometallics the vibrant and growing journal that it is. As 2019 and the International Year of the Periodic Table begins, stay tuned to Organometallics for great chemistry and special content featuring all of our favorite elements!
a great forum for these important topics, and suggestions for more editorials in this spirit are welcome. In 2018, we also celebrated the accomplishments of Professor Tianning Diao of New York University as the Organometallics Distinguished Author Lecturer at the ACS National Meeting in Boston. To learn more about Tianning’s unique career path and trajectory, take time to watch a video interview with her and read the ACS Axial blog post. Her paper on agostic interactions in palladium alkyls was cited as part of her award. In Boston, Organometallics cosponsored symposia with the Divisions of Inorganic and Organic Chemistry (Figure 5). Not surprisingly, organometallic
Paul J. Chirik
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Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
AUTHOR INFORMATION
ORCID
Paul J. Chirik: 0000-0001-8473-2898 Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
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Figure 5. Celebrating Professor Tianning Diao as the 2018 Organometallics Distinguished Author Lecturer (top). A selection of speakers and Division of Inorganic Chemistry Officers (lower left) and presentation of the award plaque (lower right). Photo credits: Stephen Ritter.
REFERENCES
(1) https://www.iypt2019.org. (2) https://iupac.org/united-nations-proclaims-international-yearperiodic-table-chemical-elements/. (3) https://twitter.com/sympocarmona?lang=en. (4) https://www.euchems.eu/euchems-periodic-table/. (5) Wu, X.; Zhao, L.; Jin, J.; Pan, S.; Li, W.; Jin, X.; Wang, G.; Zhou, M.; Frenking, G. Observation of alkaline earth complexes M(CO)8 M = Ca, Sr, Ba) that mimic transition metals. Science 2018, 361, 912− 916. (6) Wilson, A. S. S.; Hill, M. S.; Mahon, M. F.; Dinoi, C.; Maron, L. Organocalcium-mediated nucleophilic alkylation of benzene. Science 2017, 358, 1168−1171.
chemistry from a variety of elementsboth transition metals and main groupwas on display. The speakers in the Division of Organic ChemistryShannon Stahl, Tom Rovis, Corinna Schindler, and Tianningpresented to a packed house on catalytic chemistry with copper, palladium, iron, and nickel. The Division of Inorganic Chemistry speakers, Dan Weix, Valerie Schmidt, Chris Uyeda, and Francois Gabbai, covered topics from nickel catalysis to organic radical chemistry to main-group elements. Chemistry is about the science of change, and change is also a natural process in scientific publishing. It is with great sadness, but also veneration and a debt of thanks, that we bid farewell to Associate Editor Deryn Fogg of the University of Ottawa. Deryn joined Organometallics in July 2013 and in addition to being a highly visible and world-class researcher in catalysis, she has been a creative force on our editorial team. I am particularly indebted to her for her mentorship and ideas when I joined Organometallics as Editor-in-Chief. Deryn, along with L. C. Campeau, spearheaded our first Special Issue in 2019 on “The Roles of Organometallic Chemistry in Pharmaceutical Research & Development”. This topical issue illustrates how Organometallics has evolved from a principally C
DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.9b00001 Organometallics XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
