Faculty Q & A: Gregory Robinson

Gregory Robinson, the Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, leads research efforts that have made enormous impact in chemistry and discoveries in sustainable energy, from exploring metalloaromaticity to the first example of a boron-boron double bond in a molecule. A chemistry department faculty member since 1995, Robinson has received many of the most prestigious awards for scientific ac hievement, including the Southern Chemist Award (1998), the Herty Medal (2008), the Humboldt Research Prize (2012), the F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry (2013), and the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Faculty Achievement Award (2014). He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021

Our colleagues at Research Communications recently interviewed Robinson on his career and groundbreaking research:

You introduced the concept of “metalloaromaticity” in 1995. Could you define metalloaromaticity and describe how “metalloaromatic molecules” differ from traditional “aromatic molecules?”

From a chemistry perspective, “aromatic” molecules have nothing to do with smell or aroma—at least not in modern science. Generally, the term “aromaticity” refers to a special class of molecules that contain planar carbon ring systems. The best example of an aromatic molecule is the iconic benzene molecule. Benzene contains a planar six-membered ring of carbon atoms and possesses a set of six unique electrons which lends additional stability to the molecule.

Chemists long accepted that ring molecules containing carbon—perhaps along with one or two sulfur or nitrogen atoms—could be termed “aromatic”. Utilizing the main group metal gallium, we synthesized, in 1995, the first molecule containing a ring of three gallium atoms—the first “cyclogallene.”

Notably, this molecule exhibited all the characteristics and properties typically ascribed to aromatic molecules, but from a metallic ring system. Consequently, we adopted the term “metalloaromaticity” to describe a molecular system wherein properly constrained metal rings could display traditional aromaticity behavior. The experimental realization of metalloaromaticity remains a milestone in chemistry.

The entire interview...

Image: Gregory Robinson, Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemistry (Photo by Dorothy Kozlowski)