"Ferric wheel" molecule characterized at MIT

Abstract

Sometimes chemistry is fun just because molecules are beautiful. At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, chemistry professor Stephen J. Lippard and graduate student Kingsley L. Taft have discovered such a molecule. has no known utility, but it sure is pretty. They call it a molecular ferric wheel. The molecule, [Fe(OCH 3 ) 2 (O 2 CCH 2 - Cl)] 10 , is a decairon molecule that forms a nearly perfect circle [ J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 112 , 9629 (1990)]. assembles spontaneously in methanolic solutions of diiron(III) oxo complexes that Lippard and Taft are studying. The studies are part of a research program to elucidate the chemistry of polyiron oxo protein cores such as those that occur in the proteins hemerythrin, ribonucleotide reductase, methane monooxygenase, and ferritin. We were not trying to make this particular compound, Lippard says. It was a completely serendipitous discovery. The compound was prepared by allowing the monochloroacetate analog of basic iron acetate, [Fe 3 O(O 2 -CCH 2 Cl) 6...