This dissertation describes the synthesis of several transition-metal polyphosphides including orthorhombic FeP2, cubic CoP3, cubic NiP2, monoclinic PdP2 and monoclinic CuP2. The investigation of these materials was initiated by the discovery of MPx formation upon reacting a metal halide with molecular yellow P4 in superheated toluene. When these MPx products were annealed at moderate temperatu...

Highly efficient energy storage is in high demand for next-generation clean energy applications. As a promising energy storage material, the application of Mn2O3 is limited due to its poor electrical conductivity. Here, high-pressure techniques enhanced the electrical conductivity of Mn2O3 significantly. In situ synchrotron micro X-Ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and resistivity measurement...

Proteins obtained from agricultural sources were blended with divalent metal ions to see if binding reactions occurred between protein chains. Feather keratin, egg albumin, and wheat gluten showed elastic modulus increases of 2–3 times with addition of divalent transition metal ions Cu2þ and Zn2þ. Increasing concentrations of ions resulted in increased stiffness. Birefringence experiments perfo...

Carbohydrate-containing clusters of various valency were synthesized using transition metal-catalyzed reactions. Thus, Grubbs’ ruthenium benzylidene catalyst was used successfully in olefin self-and cross-metathesis reactions from both O-and C-alkenyl glycopyranosides. The reaction was also used to generate C-linked pseudodisaccharides. Oxidative dimerization of terminal alkynes such as 2-propy...

In this paper I brieey discuss the concepts of localization and metal-insulator transition. The phenomenological description of the conducting properties depending on the dimensionality and disorder, and the physical arguments for the scaling-function are presented. The conducting properties of the 3D system near the critical point of the metal-insulator transition predicted by this scaling mod...

tions have been developed as fundamentally important crosscoupling reactions. In general, the heteroatom nucleophiles in these reactions have been largely limited to alkylamines, anilines, carboxylates and phenols. Our laboratory is interested in searching the synthetically useful heteroatom nucleophiles for the synthesis of functionalized allylic compounds (Fig. 1). As our successful examples,...

Transition metals such as Fe, Cu, Mn, and Zn are essential minerals for normal plant growth and development, although they can be toxic when present in excess. Thus, for healthy plant growth, a range of transition metals must be acquired from the soil, distributed around the plant, and their concentrations carefully regulated within different cells and organelles. Membrane transport systems are...

While the d(0) transition-metal POMs of Group V (V(5+), Nb(5+), Ta(5+)) and Group VI (Mo(6+), W(6+)) have been known for more than a century, the actinyl peroxide POMs, specifically those built of uranyl triperoxide or uranyl dihydroxidediperoxide polyhedra, were only realized within the last decade. While virtually every metal on the Periodic Table can form discrete clusters of some type, the ...

This account critically surveys the field of side-chain transition metal-containing polymers as prepared by controlled living ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) of the respective metal-incorporating monomers. Ferrocene- and other metallocene-modified polymers, macromolecules including metal-carbonyl complexes, polymers tethering early or late transition metal complexes, etc. are here...

We study theoretically the electronic states in a 5d transition metal oxide Na2IrO3, in which both the spin-orbit interaction and the electron correlation play crucial roles. A tight-binding model analysis together with the first-principles band structure calculation predicts that this material is a layered quantum spin Hall system. Because of the electron correlation, an antiferromagnetic orde...