Prof. Ning Chen [Soochow University, China]

Title: New Frontier in Fullerene Chemistry:  Unique bonding motifs and cage structures in Actinide Endohedral Fullerenes

Time: 2:00 - 3:00 PM, Friday, September 22, 2017

Place: Conference room 410, HPSTAR (Shanghai)

Host: Lin Wang

Abstract

The hollow internal cavity of fullerene buckyballs, e.g. C2n, has been known to able to encapsulate novel metallic units, especially those otherwise very reactive or virtually impossible to prepare clusters.  Recently, we reported the first crystallographically characterized examples of actinide endohedral metallofullerenes (Th@C82, U@C2n, 2n = 72, 84) and described their unique electronic properties. Th@C3v(8)-C82 shows a unique four electron metal-to-cage electron transfer and U@C82 isomers represent the first pair where the oxidation state of the encapsulated ion depends on the isomeric cage structure. (4+ or 3+). Moreover, a long sought-after genuine U=C has been discovered in an unexpected and unpredicted U2C@Ih-C80 compound. This study suggests that actinide endohedral fullerenes not only demonstrate substantially different bond motif and cage structures from those Lanthanide fullerenes and also reveal unique actinide bonds which have never been discovered in the conventional actinide compound reported previously.

Biography of the Speaker:





Prof. Ning Chen obtained his Ph. D degree on Physical Chemistry from Institute ofChemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, under the supervision of Prof. ChunruWang in 2007. From 2008 to 2009, he worked as a guest scientist with Prof. Lothar Dunsch in Leibniz Institutefor Solid State and Materials Research Dresden (Germany). From 2009 to2012, he did a postdoctoral stay with Prof. Luis Echegoyen in ClemsonUniversity and the University of Texas, El Paso. Since 2012, he is an AssociateProfessor at College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Material Sciences,Soochow University (China). His current research mainly focus on the synthesis,characterization and chemical functionalization of novel endohedral fullerenes and the application of fullerenes in the organic photovoltaic devices.