As 2020 Chair of the Mid-Hudson section of the American Chemical Society it is my honor to host an excellent technical talk by Dr John Galbraith of Marist College. The talk will be presented at the Hancock Center (room) of Marist College at 7pm details can be found here – https://www.midhudsonacs.org/events.html
Charge-Shift Bonding: Redefining Our Concept of the Chemical Bond
Dr. John Morrison Galbraith
Department of Chemistry Biochemistry, and Physics, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA,
Place: Marist College, Hancock Center, Rm 2023
Date: January 28th, 7 pm – Light Refreshments served from 6:30 pm
Abstract: The foundation of our understanding of the chemical bond dates back to the pioneering work of G. N. Lewis. Lewis’s ideas were then framed in the language of quantum mechanics by Pauling and Slater resulting in the present-day classification of chemical bonds as either covalent/polar covalent or ionic. However, in the early 1990’s a new form of chemical bonding, charge-shift bonding (CSB), began to emerge. Originally CSB was seen as an anomaly of valence bond theory by which it was discovered. However, in recent years CSB has been gaining attention and is being recognized by other forms of theory such as molecular orbital theory, electron density theories, energy decomposition analysis, and energy stress tensors. In this talk I will discuss our work regarding CSB over the past several decades. I will start by describing the valence bond VB methods by which CSB was first recognized and later probed. I will then define CSB and discuss the root causes of this new type of interaction. Lastly, I will show that CSB is not simply an artifact of the VB methodology and describe how it is present in other forms of theory as well. I will then show some experimental manifestations of this unique bonding situation and discuss its potential applications. The chemical bond is at the heart of chemistry and the way we view bonds has remained unchanged for over 100 years. CSB is a real and unique form of chemical bond that has the potential to completely change the way we think about chemistry.
A brief description of this work was featured on the WAMC national production The Academic Minute (https://academicminute.org/about/) in September of 2019. “The Academic Minute features researchers from colleges and universities around the world, keeping listeners abreast of what’s new and exciting in the academy and of all the ways academic research contributes to solving the world’s toughest problems and to serving the public good.” The audio file as well as a written transcript can be found at: https://academicminute.org/2019/09/john-galbraith-marist-college-chemical-bonding/
Biography of presenting author: John Morrison Galbraith received his PhD from the University of Georgia in 1997 working with Professor Henry F. Schaefer III. He then held postdoctoral positions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he worked with Sason Shaik and the University of Washington where worked with Weston Thatcher Borden. Since 2001 he has been a faculty member at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY where he teaches and works primarily with undergraduate students. His current research interests involve theoretical descriptions of chemical bonding mostly using valence bond theory. The work discussed in this presentation began during his postdoctoral appointment in Israel and continues to this day.