Halogen Bonding: Fundamentals and Applications

            On November 7^th, Dr. Bill Pennington, a professor of inorganic chemistry at Clemson University and a director of the Molecular Structure Center came to present at UNCG.  His topic of focus presented at this seminar was on halogen bonding where he explained the basis to the most complex ideas. He has been researching his topic of halogen bonding where he discussed many of his publications and discoveries. He has over 260 publications and has received several awards and recognition for his work!

Pennington’s main area of focus was on crystal chemistry involving halogen bonding. At first, I did not know what he meant and was lost at some parts, but slowly and surely he begin to break down the presentation into simpler understandable explanations. He explained to us that crystal chemistry was one of the topics that he researched and it basically deals with Lewis Interactions (acids and bases). He grouped the topics into Halogen Bonding/X-bonding, X-bonding Periodic Table, Metapolyiodides, and then Polyiodides. Halogen bonding is the non covalent interactions that occur between a halogen, which is considered the Lewis acid and is elcrtophillic, and then between a base. Dr. Pennington compared this to hydrogen bonding because it is strong which is important when it comes to crystal design or engineering.

Dr. Pennington was a really good speaker and did well explaining his topics to the audience. I actually left the seminar with good knowledge on the different fundamentals of halogen bonding, crystal chemistry, and structural characterization.

                                          Halogen bonding can for crystal structures

 

 

 

Reference:

http://www.clemson.edu/ces/departments/chemistry/people/faculty/pennington.html

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejoc.201201512/abstract