Thomas W. Nalli - Research Interests

Chemistry 430 Syllabus       Former Research Students

My research group currently consists of seven undergraduate students, Saluja Mahabamunuge, Abdalla Abdalla, Loretta Akpala, Manish Nepal, Brandon Johnson, Jake Pitt, and Steven Klankowski. I am also collaborating on some Mississippi River related research with scientists at the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

One of our newer areas of interest is measuring rate constants for reactions of phenyl radicals in solution with biomolecules. Little is known about the reaction pathways of phenyl radicals in biological systems even though they are known to form under a number of different circumstances.Our method uses p-tert-Butylphenyl radicals generated by the radical chain reaction of triphenylphosphine with bis(p-tert-butylphenyl)iodonium hexafluorophosphate. The phenyl radicals are allowed to partition between reaction with the phosphine (literature rate constant, k = 3 x 10⁸ M^-1 s^-1) and reaction with the biomolecule. Integration of the t-butyl protons peaks in the NMR reveals the partition ratio and, thus, the rate constants of interest. We have some nice preliminary results using thymidine as the biomolecule. We also have had limited success measuring the rates of reaction of some fatty acid methyl esters.

We are also interested in achieving the formation of some novel new polyphosphonium salts. For example we have attempted to react bisiodonium salt (1)  with 1,4-bis(diphenylphosphino)benzene (2)  to form a phosphonium polymer (3).

An ongoing project that has been fruitful uses visible-light-initiated radical-chain chemistry of an iodonium salt with a trialkoxy phosphine to form reactive trialkoxyphosphonium salts that can start cationinc polymerization of epoxide monomers. See http://oasys2.confex.com/acs/235nm/techprogram/P1137708.HTM.

Our collaborations on Mississippi River research involve using NMR and GC/MS to help answer basic questions about stress levels and diet of various marine organisms. For example, in Spring 2008, WSU undergraduates, Michon Mulder, Abdalla Abdalla, and Matt Alstad, used GC/MS to positively identify the specific fatty acids present in three distinct marine species.