Earl Muetterties

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Earl Muetterties at the ACS Meeting Detroit 1965

Earl Leonard Muetterties (born June 23, 1927 in Elgin, Illinois , † January 12, 1984 in Oakland , California) was an American chemist. The focus of his scientific work was on the fields of borane chemistry , homogeneous catalysis , heterogeneous catalysis and fluctuating processes in organometallic complexes.

life and work

Muetterties studied chemistry at Northwestern University , where he received his bachelor's degree in 1949. Under the supervision of Charles Brown and Eugene G. Rochow at Harvard University , he completed his PhD on boron-nitrogen compounds, with the title Studies of donor-acceptor bonding .

After graduating in 1952, he accepted a position at DuPont Central Research , where he was promoted to Research Supervisor in 1955. His first work was in the field of inorganic fluorine compounds, especially those of sulfur and phosphorus . In collaboration with William Dale Phillips , he used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to investigate dynamic processes in inorganic fluorine compounds.

His work on borohydride clusters led to various polyhedral boron anions such as B 12 H 12 2− . He also investigated π-allyl, fluoroalkyl and borohydride complexes of the transition metals . He extended his research to the study of stereochemically dynamic complexes. In 1965 he became the associate director of central research at DuPont. In addition to working groups in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, he founded research groups to investigate the synthesis and spectroscopy of organometallic complexes.

Muetterties' academic career began with a post- graduate teaching post at Princeton University from 1967 to 1969 and later at the University of Pennsylvania from 1969 to 1973. In collaboration with the Monell Chemical Senses Center, he studied vertebrate pheromones . After a two-month teaching position at Cambridge University in 1972, he accepted a position at Cornell University in 1973 , where he specialized in the field of organometallic chemistry and homogeneous catalysis, sometimes in collaboration with Roald Hoffmann . In 1971, Muetterties was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences .

In 1979 he went to the University of California at Berkeley , where he continued his work on homogeneous catalysis and cluster chemistry . At Berkley he expanded his field of work to include surface chemistry .

Muetterties supported the publication of the ACS journals Inorganic Chemistry and Organometallics . He was on the committee for Inorganic Syntheses magazine and edited the 10th issue. He has also edited books on boron chemistry and transition metal hydrides, and wrote reviews of complexes with unusual coordination numbers. A work on his contributions has been published posthumously.

Works (selection)

  • Earl Leonard Muetterties (Ed.): Transition Metal Hydrides. Dekker Verlag, New York 1972, ISBN 0-8247-1470-9 .
  • Earl Leonard Muetterties (Ed.): Boron Hydride Chemistry. Academic Press, New York 1975, ISBN 0-12-509650-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Charles A. Brown, Earl L. Muetterties, Eugene G. Rochow: Boron nitrogen systems. III. Addition compounds of boron trifluoride and diamines. In: Journal of the American Chemical Society. 76, 1954, pp. 2537-2539, doi: 10.1021 / ja01638a071 .
  2. ↑ Earl L. Muetterties, Eugene G. Rochow: Complexes of boron fluoride with amides. In: Journal of the American Chemical Society. 75, 1953, pp. 490-491, doi: 10.1021 / ja01098a510 .
  3. ↑ Life data, publications and academic family tree of Earl Leonard Muetterties at academictree.org, accessed on January 3, 2019.
  4. ↑ Herbert W. Roesky, Fred N. Tebbe, Earl L. Muetterties: Thiophosphate chemistry. Anion set X2PS2-, (XPS2) 2S2-, and (XPS2) 2S22-. In: Inorganic Chemistry. 9, 1970, pp. 831-836, doi: 10.1021 / ic50086a028 .
  5. ↑ Earl L. Muetterties, WD Phillips: Fluoroarsenites. In: Journal of the American Chemical Society. 79, 1957, pp. 3686-3687, doi: 10.1021 / ja01571a022
  6. ^ EL Muetterties, JH Balthis, YT Chia, WH Knoth, HC Miller: Chemistry of Boranes. VIII. Salts and Acids of B 10 H 10 2− and B 12 H 12 2− In: Inorganic Chemistry. 3, 1964, pp. 444-451, doi: 10.1021 / ic50013a030 .
  7. ↑ EL Muetterties: Polytopal form and isomerism. In: Tetrahedron. 30, 1974, pp. 1595-1604, doi: 10.1016 / S0040-4020 (01) 90682-9 .
  8. ↑ J. Beruter, GK Beauchamp, EL Muetterties: Complexity of chemical communication in mammals: urinary components mediating sex discrimination by male guinea pigs. In: Biochemical and biophysical research communications . 53, 1973, pp. 264-271.
  9. ^ RR Burch, EL Muetterties, MR Thompson, VW Day: Synthesis and structure of a coordinately unsaturated trinuclear rhodium cluster. In: Organometallics. 2 (3), 1983, pp. 474-478.
  10. ↑ DG Klarup, EL Muetterties, AM Stacy: Thermal desorption studies of methyl-substituted benzenes on nickel (111) and nickel (100) surfaces. In: Langmuir. 1, 1985, pp. 764-766.
  11. ^ RG Bergman, GW Parshall, KN Raymond: Earl L. Muetterties, 1927-1984. In: Biographical Memoirs. 63, 1994, pp. 383-393. National Academy Press, Washington, DC
personal data
SURNAME Muetterties, Earl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Muetterties, Earl Leonard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Elgin, Illinois
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 1984
Place of death Oakland , California