History
Early developments in organometallic chemistry include Louis Claude Cadet’s synthesis of methyl arsenic compounds related to cacodyl, William Christopher Zeise's platinum-ethylene complex, Edward Frankland’s discovery of dimethyl zinc, Ludwig Mond’s discovery of Ni(CO)4, and Victor Grignard’s organomagnesium compounds. The abundant and diverse products from coal and petroleum led to Ziegler-Natta, Fischer-Tropsch, hydroformylation catalysis which employ CO, H2, and alkenes as feedstocks and ligands.
Tetraethyllead previously was combined with gasoline as an antiknock agent. Due to lead's toxicity it is no longer used, its replacements being other organometallic compounds such as ferrocene and methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl (MMT).
Recognition of organometallic chemistry as a distinct subfield culminated in the Nobel Prizes to Ernst Fischer and Geoffrey Wilkinson for work on metallocenes. In 2005, Yves Chauvin, Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock shared the Nobel Prize for metal-catalyzed olefin metathesis.
Read more about this topic: Organometallic Chemistry
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