B.S. University of Oregon, 1996-2000 (James Hutchison) Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001-2006 (Richard Schrock) Postdoctoral Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2006-2010 (Heinz Frei)

Inorganic Chemistry

Our lab at the NCSU Dept. of Chemistry is interested in discovering the basic chemical transformations needed to develop terawatt scalable solar-to-fuel technologies. To do this, we focus on understanding and controlling electron transfer using a combined synthetic and spectroscopic approach. We are especially interested in the chemistry of non-traditional chromophores which utilize transition metals that are both cheap and abundant enough for deployment on a massive scale.

Cuk, T.; Weare, W.W.; Frei, H. "Unusually long lifetime of excited charge-transfer state of all-inorganic binuclear TiOMn(II) unit anchored on silica nanopore surface." J. Phys. Chem. C 2010, 114, 9167–9172. Wu, X.; Weare, W.W.; Frei, H. "A Binuclear TiOMn Charge-Transfer Chromophore in Mesoporous Silica" Dalton Trans. 2009, 10114-10121. Weare, W.W.; Pushkar, Y.; Yachandra, V.; Frei, H. "Visible light-induced electron transfer from di-μ-oxo dinuclear Mn complexes to Cr centers in silica nanopores." J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 11355-11363. Weare, W.W.; Dai, X.; Byrnes, M.J.; Chin, J.M.; Schrock, R.R.; Müller, P. "Nitrogen Fixation Special Feature: Catalytic reduction of dinitrogen to ammonia at a single molybdenum center." PNAS 2006, 103, 17099-17106. Weare, W.W.; Schrock, R.R.; Müller, P. "Unsymmetric hybrid triamidoamine molybdenum complexes as nitrogen reduction catalysts: ammonia to dinitrogen exchange isn’t the only problem." Inorg. Chem. 2006, 45, 9185-9196. Ritleng V.; Yandulov D.V.; Weare W.W.; Schrock R.R.; Hock A.S.; and Davis W.M. "Molybdenum triamidoamine complexes that contain hexa-tert-butylterphenyl, hexamethylterphenyl, or p-bromohexaisopropylterphenyl substituents. An examination of some catalyst variations for the catalytic reduction of dinitrogen", J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2004, 119, 6150-6163.

Weare W.W.; Reed S.M.; Warner M.G.; and Hutchison J.E. "Improved synthesis of small (dCORE ≈ 1.5 nm) phosphine-stabilized gold nanoparticles." J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2000, 122, 12890-12891.