Patricia A. Shapley

    Professor of Chemistry

    Professor Shapley received her B.A. from Boston University in 1977 and her Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1981. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut Louis Pasteur de Strasbourg, France, 1981-2. She received a Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 1991.

    e-mail: pshapley@uiuc.edu
    telephone: 217-244-4186

Research

There has been a significant shift by the chemical industry to reduce waste and polluting byproducts from the synthesis of bulk commodity chemicals but a similar change in the industrial production of fine chemicals has not yet occurred. Our goal is to promote "greener" chemical synthesis by creating highly selective and active catalysts for the oxidation of organic substrates with molecular oxygen. We synthesize high oxidation state organometallic complexes with oxo, nitrido, or sulfido ligands that also have open coordination sites for the binding of substrates. We examine reactions between the organometallic species and oxidizible organic molecules and we probe the mechanisms of these interactions.

Recent publications



Teaching

    Fall, 2005: Chemistry 312, Inorganic Chemistry, meets at 9 AM, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays ion room 161 Noyes Laboratory. The course covers basic chemical bonding in molecules, introduction to symmetry, chemistry of the main group elements, coordination chemistry of the transition elements, organometallic chemistry, solid state chemistry, and bioinorganic chemistry. Our textbook will be "Inorganic Chemistry" (2nd Ed.) by Catherine Housecroft and Alan Sharpe. Click here to access the course website.

    Spring, 2006: Chemistry 460, Green Chemistry. This course seeks to reduce the environmental consequences of the chemical industry. It includes modifying engineering practices, the development of new catalytic processes, modification of existing chemical processes, and bioremediation.


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