Contact Information:
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77842
Phone: (979) 845-0648
Fax: (979) 845-2373
fackler@mail.chem.tamu.edu

John P Fackler
Distinguished Professor

Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1960
B.A. Valparaiso University, 1956

Awards:

• ACS Distinguished Service Award (2001)
• W. Manchot Research Professor, Technical University of Munich (1992)
• ACS Morley Medal (1987)
• ACS Southwest Regional Award (1990)
• Guggenheim Fellowship (1977)

Areas of Interest:

• Cu, Ag, Au and Related Metal Chemistry

The Fackler Research Group

Chemistry associated with multinuclear metal species can be significantly different from chemistry that occurs at a single center, especially for reactions in which a metal-metal bond can be ruptured or formed during the chemical event. Small molecules often can be added across both metal centers in dinuclear gold complexes and certain polynuclear species. In related work, it has been discovered that many Au(I) multinuclear compounds are luminescent under UV radiation. The excited state produced is influenced by solvent, solid state structure, and the presence of heterometallic species near the Au(I). The excited state also appears to contain stronger metal-metal bonding than the ground state.

Recent studies with gold(I) in our laboratory have focused on compounds with nitrogen ligands. New tetranuclear compounds have been found which appear to be excellent precursors for the formation of nanogold, an excellent room temperature CO oxidation catalyst. It also has been possible to form mixed metal, gold(I)/silver(I) species. Oxidized dinuclear amidinate complexes of Au(I) have the shortest gold-gold discovered to date and the guanidinate complex spontaneously oxidizes in the presence of ligands that stabilize Au(II). Solvents such as CH₂Cl₂ give nearly 100% yield of the Au(II) dichloride product. Emission properties of these new tetranuclear complexes and some new mixed metal trinuclear complexes currently are being studied.

"Mercury(II) Cyanide Coordination Polymer with Dinuclear Gold(I) Amidinate." Structure of the 2-D[Au₂(2,6-Me₂-formamidinate)₂]-Hg(CN)₂.THF Complex. Ahmed A. Mohamed, Hanan E. Abdou, John P. Fackler, Jr., Inorg. Chem., 2006, 45, 11-13.

"Photophysics of supramolecular binary stacks consisting of electron-rich trinuclear Au(I) and organic electrophiles." Mohammad A. Omary, Ahmed A. Mohamed, Manal A. Rawashdeh-Omary, John P. Fackler, Jr., Coordination Chemistry Reviews, 2005, 249, 1372-81.

"Mixed-Metal Triangular Trinuclear Complexes: Dimers of Gold-Silver Mixed-Metal Complexes from Gold(I) Carbenieates and Silver(I) 3,5-Diphenylpyrazolates." Ahmed A. Mohamed, Alfredo Burini, John P. Fackler, Jr., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2005, 127, 5012-5013.

"Homogeneous Catalysis in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide with Rhodium Catalysts Tethering Fluoroacrylate Polymer Ligands." Ibrahim Kani, Mohammad A. Omary, Manal A. Rawashdeh-Omary, Zulema K. Lopez-Castillo, Roberto Flores, Aydin Akgerman, and John P. Fackler, Jr., Tetrahedron, 2002, 58(20), 3923-3928.

"Forty-Five Years of Chemical Discovery Including a Golden Quarter-Century." John P. Fackler, Jr. Inorganic Chemistry 2002, 41(26), 6959-6972.