Joseph Chatt

Joseph Chatt, CBE (6 November 1914 — 19 May 1994) was a renown researcher in the area of inorganic and organometallic chemistry. His name is associated with the description of the pi-bond between transition metals and alkenes, the so-called Dewar-Chatt-Duncanson model.

Chatt received his Ph.D. at Cambridge University under the direction of F. G. Mann for research on organoarsenic and organophosphorus compounds and their complexes with transition metals. [Chatt, J.; Mann, F. G. "The Synthesis of Ditertiary Arsines. Meso- and Racemic Forms of Bis-4-Covalent-Arsenic Compounds", "Journal of the Chemical Society", 1939, 610 - 615. DOI|10.1039/JR9390000610] He was employed at Imperial Chemical Industries from 1949 to 1962, during which time he, often in collaboration with his colleague Bernard Shaw, published influential work on the metal hydrides and metal alkene complexes. During this period, he reported the first example of C-H bond activation by a transition metal. ["The tautomerism of arene and ditertiary phosphine complexes of ruthenium(0), and the preparation of new types of hydrido-complexes of ruthenium(II)" J. Chatt and J. M. Davidson, J. Chem. Soc. 1965, 843 DOI|10.1039/JR9650000843]

In the 1960s, Chatt moved to a professorship at the University of Sussex and subsequently assumed directorship of the Nitrogen Fixation Unit under the Agricultural Research Council. [Leigh, G.J. (editor), N. W. Winterton (editor), "Modern Coordination Chemistry: The Legacy of Joseph Chatt", Springer Verlag (2002). ISBN 0854044698] Using the coordination complex W(N₂)₂(dppe)₂, his group first demonstrated the conversion of a dinitrogen ligand into ammonia. This work provided some of the first molecular models for nitrogen fixation.

Among his many awards, he was recognized with the 1981 Wolf Prize "for pioneering and fundamental contributions to synthetic transition metal chemistry, particularly transition metal hydrides and dinitrogen complexes." He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1961, and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. [Eaborn, C., and G.J. Leigh, "Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society", Vol. 42, (Nov 1996) , pp. 96-110]

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