Journal of Undergraduate Materials Research

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Ruthenium Coordination Chemistry: Implications for Directed Carbon Nanotube Assembly
Younts, Thomas (Virginia Tech Department of Materials Science and Engineering, 2008-03-20)
Ruthenium coordination chemistry is studied for its usage as a building block for constructing supramolecular coordination complexes.Our laboratory focuses on how nanometer sized ruthenium structures interact with single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with implications for directed nano-structure assembly.Understanding aspects of carbon nanotube assembly involves synthesizing ruthenium coordination complexes with various morphological and electrostatic properties.For example, various ruthenium dendrimers, each of which differs in shape and overall cationic charge, can be synthesized.Progress towards synthesizing a ruthenium trimer is reported.The central unit to the trimer, [Ru(phendione)2 phen]2+, was successfully created in high purity.[Ru(phen ) 2 phendiamine]2+, the peripheral monomer implemented in trimer synthesis, was not attained.However, precursor to the peripheral unit, [Ru(phen)2 phendione]2+, was synthesized.Since ruthenium monomers are built from various diimine ligands, syntheses of these ligands are also presented.Taken together, we possess half the starting material needed to create the trimer that will be utilized for carbon nanotube aggregation studies.