Name Jay Kochi Fields Physical Chemistry Influenced Roger A. Sheldon | Died 2008 | |
Institutions Harvard UniversityCase Western Reserve UniversityUniversity of California, BerkleyIndiana UniversityUniversity of Houston Notable awards Member of the National Academy of Sciences | ||
Jay Kazuo Kochi (1927–2008) was a physical organic chemist who held lectureship at Harvard University, and faculty positions at Case Institute of Technology, 1962-1969, (now Case Western Reserve University), Indiana University, 1969 to 1984, and the University of Houston, 1984 to 2008.
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Education
Kochi received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1949 and his Ph.D. at Iowa State University in 1952 with George S. Hammond and Henry Gilman as advisors. For the majority of his faculty career, he was located at the University of Houston, where he was Welch Professor.
Research
Kochi's research examined the interactions of electron donors and acceptors. One topic of his study was the nitration of benzene to give nitrobenzene. Kochi's work showed that this reaction proceeds via a complex between benzene (the donor) and nitrosonium ion (the acceptor). He also contributed to many aspects of organometallic chemistry, including the discovery of Cu, Fe, and Ag-catalyzed cross-coupling processes, preceding the discovery of the better known Pd and Ni-catalyzed versions. At the time, these results were largely ignored by the synthetic organic chemistry community. Many decades later, interest in base metal catalysis sparked significant efforts to further develop cross-coupling reactions catalyzed by metals such as Fe in particular. His research in organometallic chemistry emphasized the importance of electron-transfer processes and radical species as intermediates. Many of these results (and the results of other investigators) are summarized in a monograph.
Awards and honors
Kochi received many awards for his research, including election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Personal life
Kochi was of Japanese descent and he and his family were forcibly interned at the Gila River War Relocation Center during World War II.