Metallaboratranes: Soft Scorpionates and Masked Metal Bases

All molecular metal compounds involve a metal surrounded by a group of electron donors ( ligands ). The design and manipulation of these ligand sets and their interactions with metals ( coordination chemistry ) underpins ALL applications of metals, be they in biological, pharmaceutical, materials or industrial applications. This proposal addresses the diametric opposite the role-reversal wherein a metal centre acts as an electron donor to a ligand. This rare situation has only recently been firmly established in this research group, but promises to be part of a wider new coordination chemistry, the limits of which will be pursued in the proposed work.