X-Nico

7 unusual facts about Geoffrey Wilkinson


Cyclopentadienylcobalt dicarbonyl

CpCo(CO)2 was first reported in 1954 by Piper, Cotton, and Wilkinson who produced it by the reaction of cobalt carbonyl with cyclopentadiene.

Ernst Otto Fischer

He has received many awards including, in 1973 with Geoffrey Wilkinson, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on organometallic compounds.

Ferrocene

In 1973 Fischer of the Technische Universität München and Wilkinson of Imperial College London shared a Nobel Prize for their work on metallocenes and other aspects of organometallic chemistry.

Geoffrey Wilkinson

One of his uncles, an organist and choirmaster, had married into a family that owned a small chemical company making Epsom and Glauber's salts for the pharmaceutical industry; this is where he first developed an interest in chemistry.

Organouranium chemistry

After the discovery of ferrocene in 1951, Todd Reynolds and Geoffrey Wilkinson in 1956 synthesized the uranium metallocene Cp3UCl from sodium cyclopentadienide and uranium tetrachloride as a stable but extremely air-sensitive compound.

Ruthenocene

Ruthenocene was first synthesized in 1952 by Geoffrey Wilkinson, a Nobel laureate who had collaborated in assigning the structure of ferrocene only a year earlier.

Vanadocene

Vanadocene was first prepared in 1954 by Birmingham, Fischer, and Wilkinson via a reduction of vanadocene dichloride with aluminum hydride, after which vanadocene was sublimed in vacuum at 100 ˚C.



see also