Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2014
Poster Presentation
The Optimization of Fe (CO) 3(PPh3)2
Adam Link
Faculty Mentor: Brian J. Bellott
Chemistry
Organometallic chemistry is a vital although poorly understood subfield of chemistry. It
involves executing chemical reactions with compounds which have metal centers with
carbon attachments. However, the vast majority of these reactions require a great deal
of time and most starting materials used are very air-sensitive, meaning that as soon as
they are exposed to air, they readily react and are rendered useless. Despite these
challenges, organometallic chemistry is very important and has numerous applications
in the fields of medicine and pharmaceuticals and therefore it is very important that
future scientists understand its principles. As such, professors face the challenge of
formulating teaching labs intended for upper-level undergraduate students which
successfully demonstrate organometallic principles while remaining within the
constraints of time and air sensitivity of compounds. We propose a novel adaptation of
a well-known but challenging reaction wherein the essential features of organometallic
chemistry are retained, but the previous constraints are alleviated, thus making it ideal
for a teaching setting.
Schematically, we plan to react triphenylphosphine with iron pentacarbonyl in the
presence of sodium hydroxide and generic brand isopropanol (commonly called rubbing
alcohol). Once combined, this mixture is refluxed (heated) for one hour, allowing the
reaction to complete. This reaction is intended to be completed several times under
varying conditions to determine the optimized settings wherein the most pure and high
yielding product is obtained. This involves varying the type of solvent used, the time of
reflux, and filtration techniques. The solid yellow product of trans-Fe(CO)3(PPh3)2 is
formed. This product is subsequently characterized via Fourier transform infrared
spectroscopy (FTIR), nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), and melting
point.