Palestra | Biomimetic Metal-Oxygen Intermediates in Dioxygen Activation and Formation Reactions

Department of Chemistry and Nano Science, Ewha Womans University, Seoul 120-750, Korea

(E-mail: wwnam@ewha.ac.kr)

Biomimetic Metal-Oxygen Intermediates in Dioxygen Activation and Formation Reactions 

Dioxygen activation by enzymes is central to many biological processes. Biomimetic studies use synthetic metal–oxygen complexes to understand reactive intermediates and the mechanisms of dioxygen activation. Research has focused on high-valent iron- and manganese-oxo, metal-peroxo, hydroperoxo, and superoxo complexes, examining their structures, spectroscopic properties, reactivities, and the influence of supporting and axial ligands. This seminar presents recent work on mononuclear nonheme metal–dioxygen intermediates, including their synthesis, structural and spectroscopic characterization, and their roles in electrophilic and nucleophilic oxidation reactions.

Distinguished Professor Ewha Womans University 2005 – 2025Distinguished Visiting Professor Ewha Womans University 2025 – 2030, Director Center for Dioxygen Chemistry 2003 – Present

Research Interest 

Biomimetic studies of heme and nonheme iron enzymes: Synthesis and spectroscopic Metal-oxygen intermediates: Water oxidation & artificial Photosystem II, Density functional theory (DFT) calculations; Bioinspired catalytic asymmetric oxidation reactions.

Summary of Publications

More than 460 papers have been published, including Science (2), Nature (1), NatureChemistry (4), Nature Reviews Chemistry (1), Accounts of Chemical Research (6), Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS, 113), Angewandte Chemie International Edition (33).