CURJ

Caltech Undergraduate Research Journal

CURJ is Caltech's award-winning undergraduate research journal, dedicated to highlighting the accomplishments of the numerous undergraduates conducting research at Caltech during the SURF program and throughout the academic year.

Featured Article

C-H Bond Activation using Organometallic Iridium Metal Complexes

Tonia Ahmed, Ian Tonks, and John Bercaw

An image for the article on display.

The C-H activation ability of iridium hydroxy dimers was studied by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography. From the data provided by these methods, the C-H activation of a variety of substrates such as indene and cyclopentadiene was observed. To determine the mechanism of the reactions, several kinetics experiments were performed using NMR spectroscopy. In the case of indene C-H activation, the rate-determining step was determined to be substrate coordination to the iridium hydroxy dimer based on kinetic and Eyring analysis.