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Jonas C. Peters

Research Summary
Inorganic Synthesis, Reaction Chemistry, and Mechanistic Studies
Profile

Assistant: Julianne Just

Jonas C. Peters is Bren Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute at the California Institute of Technology. His research focuses on new concepts for catalysis (including electro- and photocatalysis) with applications in renewable solar fuel technologies, distributed nitrogen fixation for fertilizers and fuels, and chemical transformations fundamental to the synthesis of organic molecules. Peters earned his BSc degree at the University of Chicago ('93), spent a year as a Marshall Scholar at the University of Nottingham ('94), did his PhD at MIT ('98), and a postdoc as a Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley ('99). He has been on the faculty at Caltech since 1999, including a brief period on the faculty at MIT.

Publications

For a complete publications list, see feeds.library.caltech.edu
2025-26
Ch 154 ab. Organometallic Chemistry. 9 units (4-0-5); second term, 2025-26. Prerequisites: Ch 112 or equivalent. A general discussion of the reaction mechanisms and the synthetic and catalytic uses of transition metal organometallic compounds. Part b not offered 2025-26.
Instructor: Peters (a)
2022-23
Ch 154 ab. Organometallic Chemistry. 9 units (4-0-5); second, third terms, 2022-23. Prerequisites: Ch 112 or equivalent. A general discussion of the reaction mechanisms and the synthetic and catalytic uses of transition metal organometallic compounds. Second term: a survey of the elementary reactions and methods for investigating reaction mechanisms. Third term: contemporary topics in inorganic and organometallic synthesis, structure and bonding, and applications in catalysis. Part b not offered 2022-23.
Instructor: Peters (a)
2019-20
Ch 153 abc. Advanced Inorganic Chemistry. 9 units (3-0-6) ; second (Ch 153 a), third (Ch 153 c offered in 2019-20, alternating with Ch 153 b in subsequent years) terms, 2019-20. Prerequisites: Ch 112 and Ch 21 abc or concurrent registration. Ch 153 a: Topics in modern inorganic chemistry. Electronic structure, spectroscopy, and photochemistry with emphasis on examples from the modern research literature. Ch 153 b: Applications of physical methods to the characterization of inorganic and bioinorganic species, with an emphasis on the practical application of Moessbauer, EPR, and pulse EPR spectroscopies. Ch 153 c: Theoretical and spectroscopic approaches to understanding the electronic structure of transition metal ions. Topics in the 153bc alternate sequence may include saturation magnetization and zero-field splitting in magnetic circular dichroism and molecular magnetism, hyperfine interactions in electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, Moessbauer and magnetic Moessbauer spectroscopy, vibronic interactions in electronic absorption and resonance Raman spectroscopy, and bonding analyses using x-ray absorption and/or emission spectroscopies.
Instructors: Gray, Winkler (a), Hadt/Peters (c)
Ch 154 ab. Organometallic Chemistry. 9 units (3-0-6); second, third terms, 2019-20. Prerequisites: Ch 112 or equivalent. A general discussion of the reaction mechanisms and the synthetic and catalytic uses of transition metal organometallic compounds. Second term: a survey of the elementary reactions and methods for investigating reaction mechanisms. Third term: contemporary topics in inorganic and organometallic synthesis, structure and bonding, and applications in catalysis. Part b not offered 2019-20.
Instructors: Peters, Agapie (a)