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Synthesis

ACS Award In Organometallic Chemistry

Sponsored by Dow Chemical Co. Foundation

by Ann M. Thayer
January 11, 2010 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 88, Issue 2

Landis
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Credit: Courtesy of Clark Landis
Credit: Courtesy of Clark Landis

When it comes to approaching chemistry, Clark R. Landis is considered versatile. His influential contributions to the field of organometallic chemistry arise from a striking combination of theory, synthesis, and scientific methodology.

“Clark has demonstrated exceptional creativity, breadth, and insight and a commitment to bringing all tools to bear on the problems of understanding and developing asymmetric and polymerization catalysts,” says Tobin J. Marks, a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University.

Landis’ impact began with his graduate work under the direction of Jack Halpern at the University of Chicago. According to colleagues, his Ph.D. research transformed the field of asymmetric catalysis by elucidating, in unprecedented detail, the mechanism of rhodium phosphine-catalyzed hydrogenation of enamides and identifying the unexpected origin of the enantioselection. This classic work, colleagues say, is cited as a landmark contribution to the field of asymmetric catalysis.

Moving on to other catalyst families, Landis used spectral and kinetic techniques to help delineate the mechanism of metallocene-catalyzed alkene polymerization. Although plastics manufacturers use such catalysts to make billions of pounds of polyethylene, polypropylene, and other polymers per year, good kinetic characterization of these catalysts was nonexistent at the outset of his research.

The long-standing challenges that Landis addressed in catalytic alkene polymerization include many firsts: the first determination of the number of active sites; the first elucidation of the kinetics of the initiation, propagation, and termination steps; and the first interception and characterization of the propagating species.

More recently, Landis has again influenced the field of asymmetric catalysis. His group has developed a modular, combinatorial synthesis of chiral 3,4-diazaphospholane ligands. These ligands are the most active, regioselective, and enantioselective hydroformylation catalysts available and can create carbon-carbon bonds from inexpensive reagents in a 100% atom-efficient process.

In addition to mechanistic and synthetic work on catalysts, Landis has developed calculation methods for studying and modeling organotransition metal complexes and new theories of transition-metal bonding. His group was the first to examine the structures and energetics of reaction pathways of enantioselective catalysts by full simulation methods. Experimentally, he employs sophisticated kinetic and spectroscopic techniques and has created new methods incorporating stopped-flow nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry.

Landis, 53, received a B.S. in chemistry in 1978 from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. After completing a Ph.D. degree at Chicago, he worked for three years as a senior research chemist in Monsanto’s corporate research laboratory.

In 1986, Landis transitioned into academia at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He then moved to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1990 and has been a full professor there since 1997. Keeping ties to industry, he has served as a consultant to Dow Chemical for the past 15 years.

Landis has been an honorary lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Rochester, as well as a visiting lecturer at the University of Heidelberg, in Germany. He is a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. In 2005, the University of Wisconsin recognized his educational contributions with the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Landis will present the award address before the Division of Inorganic Chemistry.

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