Courses
General Chemistry II, Organometallic Chemistry, Inorganic/Organometallic Chemistry Seminar

Research Interests
Ever since Kekulé's intuitive idea on the structure of benzene, "aromaticity" has been one of the most fascinating and provocative research topics in chemistry. While benzene is the archetypical aromatic compound, it is now well known that heterocyclic analogues of benzene also exhibit aromatic properties. These heterocyclic benzenoid compounds, in which a CH group is formally replaced by an isoelectronic heteroatom, include pyridine, phosphabenzene, pyrylium, and thiopyrylium. In contrast, virtually nothing is known about metallacyclic benzenoid compounds, i.e., benzene analogues in which a CH group has been formally replaced by a transition metal and its associated ligands. Such "metallabenzenes" represent a fundamentally new class of aromatic compounds in which metal d orbitals participate fully with carbon p orbitals in the formation of ring -bonds.  Professor Bleeke has succeeded in synthesizing metallabenzenes using an approach that employs pentadienide reagents as the source of the ring carbon atoms.

Selected Publications:

• J.R. Bleeke, "Metallabenzenes," Chem. Rev., 101, 1205 (2001).

• J.R. Bleeke, P.V. Hinkle, and N.P. Rath, "Synthesis, structure, spectroscopy, and reactivity of a metallathiabenzene," Organometallics, 20, 1939 (2001).

• J.R. Bleeke, J.M.B. Blanchard, and E. Donnay, "Synthesis, spectroscopy, and reactivity of a metallapyrylium," Organometallics, 20, 324 (2001).

• J. R. Bleeke and R. Behm, "Synthesis, structure, and reactivity of iridacyclohexadienone and iridaphenol complexes," J. Am. Chem. Soc., 119, 8503 (1997).