Maurice Brookhart Explained

Maurice Brookhart
Birth Date:28 November 1942
Birth Place:Cumberland (Maryland)[1]
Citizenship:United States
Field:Organometallic chemistry
Work Institution:University of Houston 2015–present
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1969–2015
Alma Mater:Johns Hopkins,
UCLA
Doctoral Advisor:Saul Winstein
Awards:Oesper Award (2016)
ACS Gabor A. Somorjai Award for Catalysis Research (2015)
Willard Gibbs Award (2010)
North Carolina Award(2008)
Centenary Prize (2000)

Maurice S. Brookhart (born 1942) is an American chemist, and professor of chemistry at the University of Houston since 2015.

Brookhart received his bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1964. He received his PhD in 1968 from the University of California, Los Angeles, in physical organic chemistry where his thesis advisor was Saul Winstein.[2] [3] [4] [5] After an NSF postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1968 and a NATO postdoctoral fellowship at Southampton University, England. In 1969, he joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina, where he stayed until 2015, when he joined the University of Houston as a professor of chemistry.

His research group is noted for its research in the general area of synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry. A recent major thrust has been the development of post-metallocene catalysts based upon late transition metal (Ni and Pd) complexes for olefin coordination polymerization.[6] [7] [8] They carry out their mechanistic investigation of the polymerization reactions primarily by low temperature IR and NMR spectroscopies. The work provides a detailed understanding of catalyst resting states and relative intermediates.

A second major focus of Brookhart's group concerns fundamental studies of C-H[9] and C-C bond activations by transition metal complexes and the incorporation of these bond activation steps into catalytic cycles. They have successfully demonstrated catalysis of the ortho-alkylation of aromatic ketones, alkyl aldehyde isomerization, hydroacylation, and the dehydrogenation of alkoxy silanes to generate silyl enol ethers.[10] Recent work on alkane metathesis has received attention.[11] [12]

He has over 300 publications in the scientific literature and holds over 22 US patents. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Notes and References

  1. American Men and Women of Science, Thomson Gale 2004
  2. Brookhart, Maurice; Ogliaruso, Michael A.; Winstein, Saul. The homoaromatic 1-hydroxyhomotropylium cation. Journal of the American Chemical Society (1967), 89(8), 1965–6.
  3. Brookhart, Maurice; Lustgarten, Ronald K.; Winstein, Saul. Bridge flipping and rearrangement of norbornadienyl and 7-methylnorbornadienyl cations. Journal of the American Chemical Society (1967), 89(24), 6352–4.
  4. Lustgarten, Ronald K.; Brookhart, M.; Winstein, Saul. Direct observation of methyl-substituted 7-norbornadienyl and bicyclo[3.2.0]heptadienyl cations. Journal of the American Chemical Society (1968), 90(26), 7364–6.
  5. Richey, Herman G., Jr.; Nichols, James D.; Gassman, Paul G.; Fentiman, Allison F., Jr.; Winstein, S.; Brookhart, M.; Lustgarten, Ronald K. Classical 7-norbornenyl cation. Competition between aryl and alkenyl functions in stabilizing 7-aryl-7-norbornenyl cations. Journal of the American Chemical Society (1970), 92(12), 3783–4.
  6. Ittel, Steven D.; Johnson, Lynda K.; Brookhart, Maurice. Late-Metal Catalysts for Ethylene Homo- and Copolymerization. Chemical Reviews (Washington, D. C.) (2000), 100(4), 1169–1203.
  7. Janeta. Mateusz. Heidlas. Julius X.. Daugulis. Olafs. Brookhart. Maurice. 2021. 2,4,6-Triphenylpyridinium: A Bulky, Highly Electron-Withdrawing Substituent That Enhances Properties of Nickel(II) Ethylene Polymerization Catalysts. Angewandte Chemie International Edition. en. 60. 9. 4566–4569. 10.1002/anie.202013854. 33230900. 1755772 . 227159941 . 1521-3773.
  8. Tran. Quan H.. Brookhart. Maurice. Daugulis. Olafs. 2020-04-15. New Neutral Nickel and Palladium Sandwich Catalysts: Synthesis of Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) via Highly Controlled Polymerization and Mechanistic Studies of Chain Propagation. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 142. 15. 7198–7206. 10.1021/jacs.0c02045. 32233435. 214770016 . 0002-7863.
  9. Brookhart, Maurice; Green, Malcolm L. H.; Parkin, Gerard. Agostic interactions in transition metal compounds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2007), 104(17), 6908–6914.
  10. Lenges, Christian P.; White, Peter S.; Brookhart, Maurice. Hydrogenations Catalyzed by [C5Me5Rh(olefin)2] Complexes: Conversion of Alkoxysilanes to Silyl Enolates. Journal of the American Chemical Society (1999), 121(18), 4385–4396.
  11. Bailey, Brad C.; Schrock, Richard R.; Kundu, Sabuj; Goldman, Alan S.; Huang, Zheng; Brookhart, Maurice. Evaluation of Molybdenum and Tungsten Metathesis Catalysts for Homogeneous Tandem Alkane Metathesis. Organometallics (2009), 28(1), 355–360.
  12. Goldman, Alan S.; Roy, Amy H.; Huang, Zheng; Ahuja, Ritu; Schinski, William; Brookhart, Maurice. Catalytic Alkane Metathesis by Tandem Alkane Dehydrogenation-Olefin Metathesis. Science (Washington, DC, United States)(2006), 312(5771), 257–261.