Experimental Mechanistic Studies of Catalytic Reactions

To identify the change in distribution of molecular species within the reaction media to determine how the substrate and catalyst make their transition to product liberation. In situ methods will provide a means to monitor species concentration over the course of the reaction which may help in identifying; any competing reacting pathways by assignment of their intermediates and products, ; resting state of the catalyst from the species distribution, ; insight into the rate-limiting step within the catalytic cycle, which will provide a means to identify any factors which will assist or perturb the efficacy of the cycle and ; orders of the reaction with respect to molecular species involved by applying the VTNA method. The in situ methods will primarily involve NMR, an invaluable, quantitative method in itself, with the added benefit that the nuclei under scrutiny, 1H and 19F, are of naturally high abundance.