Kim M. Baines
Professor
B.Sc., St. Mary's
Ph.D., Toronto
E-mail: kbaines2@uwo.ca

Research Group Homepage

publish.uwo.ca/~kbaines2/

Awards
President's Occupational Health and Safety Award
Polanyi Prize
Clara Benson Award
Canadian National Congress-International Union Pure and Applied Chemistry(CNC-IUPAC) Award
Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada
Florence Bucke Award

Current Research Program
One of the most important advances in inorganic chemistry over the last 30 years was the discovery of stable cations and multiply bonded species of the heavier main group elements. The spectroscopic and structural characterization of these unsaturated species has profoundly influenced our understanding of structure, bonding and reactivity. Multiply bonded compounds of the heavier main group elements have also proven to be powerful building blocks in organometallic/inorganic synthesis just as alkenes and alkynes are in organic synthesis. An impressive array of previously inaccessible compounds, particularly ring systems, has been made from metallenes (M=C), dimetallenes (M=M) and dimetallynes (M≡M). Even more exciting are the innovative applications of this chemistry that are now being explored including the exploitation of the highly regiospecific cycloaddition reactions of silenes (R2Si=CR2) in organic synthesis, the addition polymerization of silenes, germenes (R2Ge=CR2) and phosphaalkenes (RP=CR2) to give novel inorganic materials, and the utilization of silyl cations to catalyze the hydrodefluorination of fluoroalkanes, the degradation of polyethers, or the polymerization of (Cl2PN)3. Lastly, the organic functionalization of semiconductor surfaces is of great interest for many technological applications, for example in the area of biosensors. However, the determination of the exact structure of surface adducts, which will be used to link more complex molecules, is difficult using current surface analytical techniques. The reactivity of dimetallenes (R2M=MR2, M=Si, Ge) has been shown to parallel that of the Si (or Ge) dimers on the Si (or Ge) (100) 2x1 surface, and thus, can aid in the understanding of surface chemistry to facilitate the attachment of complex molecules and the subsequent development of new devices.
Our research program explores this exciting area of chemistry with a focus on Group 14 compounds in the following three general areas:

Selected Publications
1. K.L. Hurni and K.M. Baines, “Addition of a Cyclopropyl Alkyne to Tetramesityldigermene: Evidence for a Biradical Intermediate” Chem. Commun., 2011, 47, 8382-8384.
2. P.A. Rupar, V.N. Staroverov, K.M. Baines, “Reactivity Studies of N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes of Germanium(II)”, Organometallics, 2010, 29, 4871-4881.
3. A. Sutrisno, M.A. Hanson, P.A. Rupar, V.V. Terskikh, K.M. Baines and Y. Huang, “Exploring the limits of 73Ge solid-state NMR spectroscopy at ultrahigh magnetic field”, Chem. Commun., 2010, 46, 2817-2819.
4. L.C. Pavelka, S.J. Holder, K.M. Baines, “Addition Polymerization of 1,1-Dimesitylneopentylgermene: Synthesis of a Poly(germylenemethylene)”, Chem. Commun., 2008, 2346-2348.
5. P.A. Rupar, V.N. Staroverov, K.M. Baines, “A Cryptand-Encapsulated Germanium(II) Dication”, Science, 2008, 1360-1363.