Anny Jutand
Ecole Normale Supérieure, France
Title: Contribution of Electrochemistry to Organometallic Catalysis
Biography
Biography: Anny Jutand
Abstract
Many organic reactions are catalyzed by transition metals and the catalytic cycle is a succession of chemical steps involving organometallic species whose metal exhibits different oxidation states. Most organometallic complexes may be oxidized or reduced. Consequently, they can be detected and characterized by electrochemical techniques. Moreover, their reactivity in chemical steps can be followed by using the same techniques, taking advantages of the fact that currents are proportional to the concentrations of electroactive species. It is thus, possible to investigate the mechanism of the chemical steps of a catalytic cycle (characterization of the reactive species and their reactivity via the determination of rate constants) so that to determine factors that will control the efficiency of catalytic reactions. This strategy has been used to investigate the role of the base in palladium catalyzed reactions.