Yuri Tulchinsky

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Reviving the Coordination Chemistry of Sulfonium Cations

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Biography

Yuri Tulchinsky has competed his PhD at the Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology in the field of organometallic chemistry with Prof. M. Gandelman in 2014. He then joined the group of Prof. M. Dinca at MIT where he worked on metal organic frameworks (MOF). Since 2018 Dr. Tulchinsky has been appointed as an Assisting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests span different areas of organic, organometallic and supramolecular chemistry, in particular, development of unusual ligand frameworks for future applications in homogeneous catalysis.

Abstract

Sulfonium ions are more than a century old and have countless applications in organic synthesis and homogeneous catalysis. However, unlike the isoelectronic tertiary phosphines, which became nearly indispensable in homogeneous catalysis, the potential of sulfonium ions to act as ancillary ligands remained unexplored for decades since the first few structures were reported.

In this talk I will describe the synthesis and full characterization of the first Rh(I) and Pt(II) complexes of sulfonium ligands, thus showing that the very limited pool of known sulfonium complexes can be extended to metals widely used in catalysis. Moreover, for the first time, the coordinating ability of an aromatic sulfonium cation has been established. I will also present a comprehensive computational study of these complexes which not only attests for the ?-accepting nature of sulfonium cations, but also places them among the most ?-acidic ligands available. This work strongly suggests the perspective of sulfonium ions becoming key players in ?-acid catalysis.