Michael Neidig

Research in the Neidig group spans synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry, catalysis and physical-inorganic chemistry. A major area of interest focuses on iron-catalysed transformations across the range of bond making and bond breaking reactions central to modern organic synthesis, developing foundational mechanistic insight to foster and facilitate sustainable catalyst and methodology development. Broader areas of interest include fundamental electronic structure and bonding studies in Earth-abundant organometallic chemistry, as well as synthetic and electronic structure studies of molecular f-element systems.

A New Iron Age of Catalysis for Sustainable Organic Synthesis

A growing body of research has demonstrated that iron can be an excellent catalyst across the breadth of bond making (e.g. C-C, C-heteroatom) and bond breaking (e.g. C-H and C-C activation) transformations critical for organic synthesis. While such iron-based methods offer tremendous potential for sustainable, low-cost methods for chemical synthesis, these remain largely uncompetitive with platinum group metals for practical use in organic synthesis. Ligand and (pre)catalyst design for effective iron-based methods has remained a significant challenge due to a general lack of mechanistic understanding of iron-catalysed organic transformations.

To overcome this challenge, our group has developed a pioneering approach combining physical-inorganic spectroscopies, low-temperature syntheses, kinetics and reaction studies to develop detailed molecular level insight into the intermediates and reaction pathways that enable effective catalysis. This foundational work has inspired and facilitated exciting advances in organoiron chemistry, including new catalytic methods for iron-catalysed two-component and three-component cross-couplings.

Pushing the Limits of Electronic Structure and Bonding in Organometallic and f-Element Chemistry …. and Beyond

Our group is interested in pushing the limits of structure and bonding in organometallic and f-element chemistry, utilising our low-temperature synthetic infrastructure combined with our spectroscopic capabilities and expertise to access previously unknown areas of chemical space. Areas of interest have included unusual homoleptic organometallic Earth-abundant and f-element species, complexes in unusual oxidation states and ligand environments, and clusters of Earth-abundant elements, amongst others.