Swiatoslaw Trofimenko honored by American Chemical Society
by Dr. Roman Andrushkiw
NEW YORK - Thirty-five years of dedicated and inspired research reaped their reward when the American Chemical Society (ACS) recognized the contributions of Dr. Swiatoslaw Trofimenko with a symposium held in his honor at the ACS Spring National Meeting in New Orleans on March 23-27.
As reported in the April 28 issue of the Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN), a journal of the ACS, the symposium, sponsored by the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry, was titled "Scorpionate Ligands - Thirty Five Years Later," and was organized to honor Dr. Trofimenko, the creator of the scorpionate ligand system, a diverse class of some 200 compounds that form complexes with all metal ions. Significantly, scorpionate ligands made the cover of this latest issue of C&EN.
Ligands in this case are large organic molecules containing boron and nitrogen atoms that bind to metal ions. The ligands that Dr. Trofimenko created and developed bear the proper chemical name polypyrazolylborates, but the manner in which they combine with metal ions reminded him of the grabbing-and-stinging action of a scorpion, hence he coined for them the term "scorpionates." This metaphoric nomenclature has been accepted by chemists worldwide.
The Scorpionate symposium brought together 31 speakers from 10 countries (Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Portugal and the United States). The program was led off with a talk by Dr. Trofimenko, as the inventor, who traced the background and the development of his discoveries.
Dr. Trofimenko started his scorpionate work as a research scientist at Du Pont's Central Research Department in the late 1960s, and after his retirement from Du Pont in 1996, he continued this work as a visiting scholar in the department of chemistry at the University of Delaware.
Other chemists interested in these novel ligands found him always willing to share his expertise. He welcomed collaboration with scientists in the United States and other countries. Later he made samples of his creations available to them and co-authored with them many publications. Dr. Trofimenko has published about 140 scientific articles in this area, including four invited reviews. Imperial College Press of London, in 1999 published his definitive book on the subject, titled "Scorpionates: The Coordination Chemistry of Polypyrazolylborate Ligands."
The appreciation Dr. Trofimenko's colleagues hold for him was best reflected in the words of Prof. Donald J. Darensbourg, one of the invited speakers at the symposium: "You have to be extremely proud of your accomplishments, I wouldn't have missed participating in a symposium honoring your contributions for anything."
As for his own feelings about scorpionate research, Dr. Trofimenko told C&EN: "As for the scorpionate ligands, it's not just the chemistry for me. The symmetry, the beautiful quality of the colorful crystals - it's all very aesthetically pleasing."
Dr. Trofimenko is a vice-president and learned secretary of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in America, a vice-president of the Lypynsky Institute of East-European Research and a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S. (UVAN). He is also a member of the ACS, in which he held a number of national and regional offices.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 25, 2003, No. 21, Vol. LXXI
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