About the Seminar:

The Tonks Group at the University of Minnesota is broadly interested in using transition metals in sustainable catalytic applications. The first part of the talk will be focused on oxidative amination reactions with titanium, the 2^nd most earth-abundant transition metal. Several years ago our group discovered that Ti imidos (L_nTi=NR) can catalyze oxidative nitrene transfer reactions from diazenes via a Ti^II/Ti^IV redox couple. We are using this new mode of reactivity to develop a large suite of practical synthetic methods. Here, our latest synthetic and mechanistic discoveries related to Ti nitrene transfer catalysis and other amination reactions will be discussed, including multicomponent N-N oxidative coupling to synthesize pyrazoles, catalytic N-N dehydrocoupling for heterocycle synthesis, and more. The second part of the talk will be focused on new strategies for using C₁ waste feedstocks in polymer synthesis. We have developed a reaction sequence leading to biodegradable polyesters starting from butadiene with CO₂. This sequence involves the telomerization of butadiene with CO₂ to a lactone called EVP, which can subsequently undergo ring-opening polymerization to generate vinyl-sidechain functionalized polyesters containing 30% CO₂ by weight.

About the Speaker:

Ian Tonks is the Associate Department Head and Lloyd H. Reyerson professor at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, and associate editor for the ACS journal Organometallics. He received his B.A. in Chemistry from Columbia University in 2006 and performed undergraduate research with Prof. Ged Parkin. He earned his Ph.D. in 2012 from the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Prof. John Bercaw on olefin polymerization catalysis and early transition metal-ligand multiply bonded complexes. After postdoctoral research with Prof. Clark Landis at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, he began his independent career at the University of Minnesota in 2013. His current research interests are focused on the development of earth abundant, sustainable catalytic methods using early transition metals, and on catalytic strategies for incorporation of CO₂ into polymers. Prof. Tonks’ work has been recognized with an Outstanding New Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, a Department of Energy CAREER award, and the ACS Organometallics Distinguished Author Award, among others. Additionally, Prof. Tonks’ service toward improving academic safety culture was recently recognized with the 2021 ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety Graduate Faculty Safety Award.