Cartography with Clusters: Mapping Surface Science Mechanisms with Atomic Precision

Please join Yale Chemistry for a Silliman Seminar in inorganic chemistry with Prof. Joshua Buss, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at University of Michigan.

Abstract: The most important global chemical processes rely on multimetallic catalysts that facilitate difficult bond making and bond breaking transformations. Many of these catalysts take the form of evolutionarily optimized enzymatic machinery, while equally vital are engineered heterogeneous catalysts used in large-scale industrial chemical transformations. A significant challenge in optimizing existing catalysts and discovering or designing new ones is the lack of fundamental mechanistic understanding of the elementary chemical processes taking place at the active site. My research group addresses this knowledge gap by employing inorganic synthesis to prepare and study multimetallic complexes that adopt design features prevalent in both industrial and enzymatic catalysis. This talk will describe the synthesis of an unusual, low-valent multicopper cluster that serves as a soluble fragment of crystalline Cu(111). Studies investigating small molecule binding and activation, as they pertain to substrate adsorption and chemisorption, are presented. This platform also facilitates surface-like catalytic transformations of NOx reagents, unsaturated hydrocarbons, and carbon oxygenates. These chemistries, including insights into their respective mechanisms, will be compared to prevailing mechanistic proposals in surface science.

Bio: Joshua A. Buss earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology working with Theodor Agapie, where his dissertation work was recognized with the Herbert Newby McCoy award and an ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry Young Investigator award. Following an NIH Ruth Kirschstein postdoctoral fellowship in the group of Shannon S. Stahl, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Josh initiated his independent career at the University of Michigan in 2020. The Buss Lab investigates the synthesis and reactivity of atomically precise multinuclear cluster complexes, as a means of developing more efficient catalytic protocols germane to energy science and human health, through deliberately engineered metal-metal cooperativity. His group’s work has been recognized with an ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Grant, the Dow Early Career Professorship of Chemistry, an NIH MIRA Early-Stage Investigator Grant, and, most recently, an award from the DOE Early Career Research Program. For more information on Prof. Buss' research: Research – The Buss Group

Hosted by Prof. Nilay Hazari

Sponsored by the Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Fund.