RESEARCH AREAS

Robert H. Crabtree

Robert H. Crabtree Professor, Yale University E: robert.crabtree@yale.edu Crabtree Group B.A., New College, Oxford, 1970; Ph.D., Sussex University, 1973

Biographical Sketch

Bob Crabtree was educated at New College, Oxford, completed his Ph.D. under Joseph Chatt at Sussex University and spent four years in Paris in Hugh Felkin’s lab at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) Natural Products Institute, headed by Derek Barton. In 1977, Crabtree came to the U.S. as an assistant professor at Yale, where he is now Professor of Chemistry. He has been an H. C. Brown Lecturer at Purdue University, a Dow lecturer at Berkeley, a Sabatier Lecturer at Toulouse, an Osborn Lecturer at Strasbourg, Mond Lecturer (UK) and visiting Professor at the Universities of Paris, Toulouse and Montpellier. He also has an ISI Highly Cited Author Award.

Crabtree is the author of a standard textbook in his field, The Organometallic Chemistry of the Transition Metals, 4th edition, Wiley, N.Y. (2005). He is the Editor in Chief of the Comprehensive Organometallic Chemistry-III (with D.M.P. Mingos) and the Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry. He is the author of over 450 journal articles, a number of which are heavily cited. He has collaborated with a number of other groups; for example, those of Odile Eisenstein (France), Per Siegbahn (Sweden)‚ Gary Brudvig (U.S.), Arnie Rheingold (U.S.), and Tom Koetzle (U.S.). Crabtree has consulted for several chemical companies including Exxon, BP, Amoco, Schlumberger, Air Products and Catalytica.

Research Statement

Crabtree has been most directly involved in organometallic and bioinorganic chemistry. His early work was on catalytic alkane C-H activation and functionalization chemistry via oxidative addition and mercury photosensitized pathways. More recently, he extended this to C-F bond activation. In hydride chemistry, he contributed to the development of dihydrogen complexes, including the development of physical methods for their detection, and developed the chemistry of M-H...H-(N,O) hydrogen bonding in inorganic chemistry. He discovered halocarbon and HF complexation. Early work on hydrogenation led to a homogeneous hydrogenation catalyst with useful properties. He has also been involved in the bioinorganic chemistry of nickel and manganese; in particular, successful functional modeling of CO dehydrogenase and photosynthetic O2 evolution. One of Crabtree’s recent advances is the use of molecular recognition to obtain high selectivity in alkyl group hydroxylation. He is looking at applications of combinatorial chemistry to organometallic problems.

Publications

• “A Functional Model for O-O Bond Formation by the O2-evolving Complex in Photosystem II,” J. Limburg, J.S. Vrettos, L.M. Liable-Sands, A.L. Rheingold, R.H. Crabtree and G.W. Brudvig, Science 283 1524-7 (1999).
• “Molecular Recognition in Regioselective Oxygenation of Saturated C-H bonds by a Dimanganese Catalyst,” S. Das, C. D. Incarvito, R. H. Crabtree, and G. W. Brudvig, Science 312, 1941-1943 (2006).
• “Ultrafast Photooxidation of Mn(II)-Terpyridine Complexes Covalently Attached to TiO2 Nanoparticles,” S.G. Abuabara, C. W. Cady, J.B. Baxter, C. A. Schmuttenmaer, R. H. Crabtree, G. W. Brudvig, and V. S. Batista, J Phys Chem C 111, 11982-11990 (2007).

Most Significant Honors & Awards

• Fellow, A.P. Sloan Foundation
• Teacher-Scholar, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation
• Prize for Organometallic Chemistry, American Chemical Society
• Prizes for Organometallic Chemistry, Royal Society of Chemistry
• Chair, Division of Inorganic Chemistry, American Chemical Society
• Mack Award, Ohio State University
• Karcher Award, University of Oklahoma
• Highly Cited Author Award, ISI Web of Knowledge