Professor Guy Orpen Structural Inorganic Chemistry Email guy.orpen@bris.ac.uk

Modern chemistry rests on a detailed knowledge of the structures of the molecules that make up the world around us. The key to understanding the behaviour of a compound lies in knowing its shape at the molecular level, understanding why it has that shape, and what the consequences of that shape are, and how its shape and properties may be exploited.

In this group we study the geometry of molecules in crystals by experimental and computational methods, and look to exploit the knowledge gained in designing and synthesising novel molecular crystals. Projects are available in the areas below and typically cover more than one area, and may involve collaboration with other research groups in Bristol or elsewhere in the world.

• Crystal engineering: designing and synthesising new crystalline solids based on metal complexes - novel structures, properties and functionalities.
• Structural systematics: the new science of analysis of collections of crystal structures. Applications of structural databases to chemistry: assessment of theories which predict structures; conformational analysis of flexible molecules; derivation of reaction pathways.
• Computational chemistry: modelling of molecular and crystal structures: Testing new methodologies and designing molecules to have desirable shapes and/or properties.
• Crystal structure analysis: structure determination by state-of-the-art single crystal X-ray methods.

Further Information

Additional information about the activities of our group can be found on the Structural Chemistry Home Page.

Selected Recent Publications

Factors controlling the relative stabilities of cis- and trans-[PtX₂L₂] isomers: Chatt and Wilkins - 50 years on,
JN Harvey, KM Heslop, AG Orpen and PG Pringle,
Chem Commun, 2003, 278.

Applications of the Cambridge Structural Database to molecular inorganic chemistry,
AG Orpen,
Acta Crystallogr Sect B-Struct Sci, 2002, 58, 398.

Use of the Ni(dithiooxalate)₂^2- unit as a molecular tecton in crystal engineering,
TJ Podesta and AG Orpen,
Crystengcomm, 2002, 336.

On the relative magnitudes of cis and trans influences in metal complexes,
KM Anderson and AG Orpen,
Chem Commun, 2001, 2682.

Principal component analysis of conformations in fused ring chelate complexes: conformer identification, stereochemistry, and interconversion pathways,
SE Harris, I Pascual and AG Orpen,
Dalton Trans, 2001, 2996.

Geometry variation of complex ions in crystals,
AG Orpen and MJ Quayle,
Dalton Trans, 2001, 1601.

Control of hydrogen bond network dimensionality in tetrachloroplatinate salts,
A Angeloni and AG Orpen,
Chem Commun, 2001, 343.

Organic-inorganic hybrid solids: control of perhalometallate solid state structures,
AL Gillon, GR Lewis, AG Orpen, S Rotter, J Starbuck, X-M Wang, Y Rodriguez-Martin and C Ruiz-Perez,
J Chem Soc, Dalton Trans, 2000, 3897.

Biarylphosphonites: a class of monodentate phosphorus(III) ligands that outperform their chelating analogues in asymmetric hydrogenation catalysis,
C Claver, E Fernandez, A Gillon, K Heslop, DJ Hyett, A Martorell, AG Orpen and PG Pringle,
Chem Commun, 2000, 961.

Full list of recent publications