|
Benjamin F. Plummer
Professor Emeritus
Organic Chemistry
phone: (210) 999-7384
FAX: (210) 999-7569
email: plummer@trinity.edu
** Research |
Ben
Plummer retired from active teaching at the end of the 1998-99 academic
year. However, he continued his research supported by the NSF through February
2000. After that he was named a Senior Scientist mentor by the Camille
and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and awarded a grant of $20,000 for two years
to continue to guide research students on summer projects.
Research
Interests
Strain Effects on Ground
and Excited State Behaviors
of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
The primary focus
of our research is to obtain detailed fundamental knowledge of the factors
determining the reactivity of ground and excited states of polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAH) that are strained by various geometrical perturbations.
Cyclopentene- fused polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (CPAH) that contain
an anthracene or fluoranthene moiety that are deformed from their normal
planar geometries as indicated by molecular mechanics calculations and/or
verified by X-ray analysis will be synthesized. The properties of these
unique compounds will be studied experimentally by photochemical, photophysical
and NMR techniques and theoretically by semiempirical molecular orbital
theory and molecular mechanics.
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