Associate Professor Graham C Saunders

Associate Professor

Qualifications: B.A.(Hons) Oxon, D.Phil Oxon

Personal Website: http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/about-us/people/gsaunder

Thomas, Hayden (submitted). Synthesis and reactivity of iridium(III) and rhodium (III) piano-stool complexes of NHC ligands bearing fluorinated substituents.
Bandaru, Sravan (in progress). Synthesis and applications of metal complexes of carbohydrate and fluoroaryl substituted N-heterocyclic carbenes.
Acharige, Udari (in progress). Crystal Engineering via Imidazolium Salts.
Sain, Prithwish (in progress). Crystal Engineering by Arene-polyfluoroarene π-π stacking.

Thomas, Hayden (2015). Synthesis and characterisation of mecury and rhodium NHC complexes containing polyfluoroaryl substituents.
Schroder, Ivan (2012). Synthesis of dicyandiamide derivatives for agricultural applications.

Research is directed towards using the properties of the carbon―fluorine bond in organometallic chemistry and for highly repellant surfaces.

Organometallic Chemistry: The extreme strength and the electronic and steric properties of the C―F bond are used to confer useful properties on organometallic complexes, in particular catalytic activity.; C―F bond fission is used to synthesize organometallic complexes, not accessible by other routes.
Superhydrophobic Surfaces: The extreme water repellancy of perfluoroalkyl groups is used to confer superhydrophobicity on metal surfaces. The work has been highlighted by Nature and Scientific American. The simple fabrication technique allows a range of unusual phenomena to be investigated, such as the Cheerios Effect and 'super-buoyancy', which allows boats to be constructed of metal mesh, and has potential industrial importance.

Risi, M. C., Saunders, G. C., & Henderson, W. (2021). The coordination chemistry of sulfonyl-substituted thioureas towards the d8 metal centres platinum(II), palladium(II), nickel(II) and gold(III). Inorganica Chimica Acta, 526. doi:10.1016/j.ica.2021.120506
Morgan, P. J., Hanson-Heine, M. W. D., Thomas, H. P., Saunders, G. C., Marr, A. C., & Licence, P. (2020). C-F bond activation of a perfluorinated ligand leading to nucleophilic fluorination of an organic electrophile. Organometallics, 39(11), 2116-2124. doi:10.1021/acs.organomet.0c00176
Lane, J. R., & Saunders, G. C. (2020). Theoretical study of the structures of 4-(2,3,5,6-tetrafluoropyridyl)diphenylphosphine oxide and tris(pentafluorophenyl)phosphine oxide: Why does the crystal structure of (tetrafluoropyridyl)diphenylphosphine oxide have two different P=O bond lengths?. Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), 25(12), 11 pages. doi:10.3390/molecules25122778
Marr, A. C., Saunders, G. C., & Thomas, H. (2020). The crystal structures of 1-(polyfluorophenylmethyl)-3-methylimidazolium bromide salts. Journal of Fluorine Chemistry, 235. doi:10.1016/j.jfluchem.2020.109556

Chemistry; Science; X-Ray

Email: [email protected]
Room: CD.3.01
Phone: +64 7 838 4092