Steven Ittel

Steven Dale Ittel was born (November, 1946) and raised in Hamilton, Ohio.

He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he received a Bachelors Degree in chemistry in 1968. He then was a commissioned officer in the United Sates Public Health Service, studying photochemical smog in the New York City metropolitan area. He attended Northwestern University where he received his PhD in chemistry under the direction of James A. Ibers in 1974. He then joined DuPont’s Central Research Department at the Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware. He is married with two children.

Ittel is best known for his contributions to organometallic chemistry and homogeneous catalysis. He discovered fluxional processes in both diamagnetic [Jack M. Williams, Richard K. Brown, Arthur J. Schultz, Galen D. Stucky, and Steven D. Ittel, "Interaction of an Aliphatic Hydrogen Atom with a Transition Metal. The First Direct Observation of a Strong C-H...Metal Interaction Derived from a Single Crystal Neutron Diffraction Study of Fe [P(OCH3)3] 3(3-C8H13)] + [BF4] -," J. Am. Chem. Soc., 100, 7407 (1978).] and paramagnetic [S. D. Ittel. P. J. Krusic, and P. Meakin, "An Electron Spin Resonance Study of the Fluxional Nature of Paramagnetic (π-Alkenyl)tris(trimethyl phosphite)iron Complexes," J. Am. Chem. Soc., 100, 3264 (1978).] π-allyl organometallic complexes bearing M-H-C agostic interactions and was responsible for a series of C-H activation reactions. [a) S. D. Ittel, C. A. Tolman, A. D. English, and J. P. Jesson, "The Chemistry of 2-Naphthyl bis [bis(dimethylphosphino)ethane] Hydride Complexes of Fe, Ru, and Os. 2. Cleavage of sp and sp3 C-H, C-O, and C-X Bonds. Coupling of Carbon Dioxide and Acetonitrile," J. Am. Chem. Soc., 100, 7577 (1978). b) C. A. Tolman, S. D. Ittel, A. D. English, and J. P. Jesson, "Chemistry of 2-Naphthyl- bis [bis(dimethylphosphino)ethane] Hydride Complexes of Iron, Ruthenium, and Osmium. 3. Cleavage of sp2 C-H Bonds," J. Am. Chem. Soc., 101, 1742 (1979).] He contributed to DuPont’s technology for cobalt-catalyzed chain transfer in acrylic radical polymerization. [Alexei A. Gridnev and Steven D. Ittel, “Catalytic Chain Transfer in Free-Radical Polymerizations,” Chem. Rev., 101(12), 3611-3659 (2001).] As a manager at DuPont, he directed the work of almost 100 DuPont scientists, including DuPont’s effort on Versipol post-metallocene catalysts for ethylene coordination polymerization and copolymerization. [Steven D. Ittel, Lynda K. Johnson, and Maurice Brookhart, "Late Metal Catalysts for Ethylene Homo- and Copolymerization," Chem. Rev. (Washington, D. C.), 100(4), 1169-1203 (2000).] Ittel coauthored the definitive textbook on “Homogeneous Catalysis” ["Homogeneous Catalysis," 2nd Edition, George W. Parshall and Steven D. Ittel, Wiley Interscience, New York (1992).] with George Parshall and his work is recorded in 136 citations in Chemical Abstracts.

Ittel practices the art of bonsai and has displayed trees at Longwood Gardens and the Brandywine River Museum. He maintains a website on [http://www.gobbs.org/Potters.htm North American Bonsai Potters] .

External links

* [http://www.ittel.org/steven_dale_ittel.htm Ittels of the World]

References