At the University of Florida, Grubbs initially intended to study agriculture chemistry.[13] However, he was convinced by professor Merle A. Battiste to switch to organic chemistry.[14] Working with Battiste, he became interested in how chemical reactions occur.[11] He received his B.S. in 1963 and M.S. in 1965 from the University of Florida.[14][15]
Next, Grubbs attended Columbia University, where he worked with Ronald Breslow on organometallic compounds which contain carbon-metal bonds. Grubbs received his Ph.D. in 1968.[2][11]
Career
Grubbs worked with James Collman at Stanford University as a National Institutes of Health fellow during 1968–1969. With Collman, he began to systematically investigate catalytic processes in organometallic chemistry, a then relatively new area of research.[11]
In 1969, Grubbs was appointed to the faculty of Michigan State University, where he began his work on olefin metathesis. Harold Hart, Gerasimos J. Karabatsos, Gene LeGoff, Don Farnum, Bill Reusch and Pete Wagner served as his early mentors at MSU.[11] Grubbs was an assistant professor from 1969 to 1973, and an associate professor from 1973 to 1978.[16] He received a Sloan Fellowship for 1974–1976.[17] In 1975, he went to the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Mülheim, Germany, on a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.[18]
In 1978, Grubbs moved to California Institute of Technology as a professor of chemistry. As of 1990 he became the Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry.[19][20]
Both first and second generation Grubbs catalysts were commercially available from Materia, a startup company that Grubbs co-founded with Mike Giardello in Pasadena, California, in 1998.[23][24][25] Materia has been able to obtain exclusive rights to manufacture many of the known olefin catalysts.[26] Under Giardello, Materia was able to sell their catalysts through Sigma-Aldrich's chemicals catalogue. Sigma-Aldrich became their exclusive worldwide provider.[24][27] In 2008, Materia partnered with Cargill to form Elevance Renewable Sciences to produce specialty chemicals from renewable oils,[28] including biofuels.[29] In 2017, Materia sold its catalyst business to Umicore.[30] In 2021, Materia was acquired by ExxonMobil.[31]
Grubbs's main research interests were in organometallic chemistry and synthetic chemistry, particularly the development of novel catalysts for olefin metathesis. In olefin metathesis, a catalyst is used to break the bonds of carbon molecules, which can then re-form to create chemical bonds in new ways, producing new compounds with unique properties.[14][34] The basic technique can be used for creation of polymers, pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals[35] and has broad applications in areas including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, agriculture, and plastics.[14]
The Grubbs group successfully polymerized the 7-oxo norbornene derivative using ruthenium trichloride, osmium trichloride as well as tungsten alkylidenes.[41] They identified a Ru(II) carbene as an effective metal center and in 1992 published the first well-defined, ruthenium-based olefin metathesis catalyst, (PPh3)2Cl2Ru=CHCH=CPh2.[39]
Metathesis Grubbs 1992
The corresponding tricyclohexylphosphine complex (PCy3)2Cl2Ru=CHCH=CPh2 was also shown to be active.[42] This work culminated in the now commercially available first-generation Grubbs catalyst in 1995.[23][43][44] Second generation catalysts were developed as well.[45][46]
Ruthenium is stable in air and has higher selectivity and lower reactivity than molybdenum, the most promising of the previously discovered catalysts. In addition, Grubbs took a green chemistry approach to catalysis that reduced the potential to create hazardous waste. The Grubbs catalyst has become a standard for general metathesis applications in ordinary laboratories.[7][36][45]
By controlling the catalyst used, it became possible to synthesize polymers with specialized structures and functional capabilities, including cyclic olefins, alternating copolymers, and multiblock copolymers.[34] Using catalysts allows chemists to speed up chemical transformations and to lower the cost of what were previously complicated multi-step industrial processes.[24]
Personal life
While at Columbia University, Grubbs also met his future wife, Helen O'Kane, a special-education teacher, with whom he had three children: Barney (born 1972), Brendan H. (born 1974) and Kathleen (Katy) (born 1977).[11][47][48]
^ abGrubbs, Robert Howard (1968). I. Cyclebutadiene Derivatives II. Studies of Cyclooctatetraene Iron Tricarbonyl Complexes (PhD thesis). Columbia University. ProQuest302317287. (subscription required)
^ abcdefg"Robert H. Grubbs – Biographical". The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2005. NobelPrize.org. Retrieved April 12, 2016. In some places, my birthplace is listed as Calvert City and in others Possum Trot. I was actually born between the two, so either one really is correct.
^Grubbs, Robert H. (2006). "Olefin-Metathesis Catalysts for the Preparation of Molecules and Materials (Nobel Lecture)". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 45 (23): 3760–3765. doi:10.1002/anie.200600680. PMID16724297.
^Schrock, R. R.; Feldman, J.; Cannizzo, L. F.; Grubbs, R. H. (September 1987). "Ring-opening polymerization of norbornene by a living tungsten alkylidene complex". Macromolecules. 20 (5): 1169–1172. Bibcode:1987MaMol..20.1169S. doi:10.1021/ma00171a053.
^Schwab, Peter; France, Marcia B.; Ziller, Joseph W.; Grubbs, Robert H. (1995). "A Series of Well-Defined Metathesis Catalysts–Synthesis of [RuCl2(CHR')(PR3)2] and Its Reactions". Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl.34 (18): 2039–2041. doi:10.1002/anie.199520391.
^"Robert H. Grubbs". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. November 18, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
^"Robert H. Grubbs". The Franklin Institute. January 10, 2014. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
^"Herman F. Mark Award 2000". Division of Polymer Chemistry, Inc. of the American Chemical Society. Archived from the original on March 15, 2016. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
^"New Academicians and Foreign Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 55 (8): 2633–2634. February 2016. doi:10.1002/anie.201511637.
