Marcus W. Drover

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Local Contact Information

Title: Associate Professor
Office: MSA 3205,
Phone: 519-661-2111 ext. 86334
E-mail: marcus.drover@uwo.ca  

 

Inorganic Teaching Division

Synthesis, Catalysis, and Molecular Materials

Sustainable Chemistry, Organometallic Chemistry, Main Group Chemistry

Group Website

Education

B.Sc. Memorial University; Ph.D. University of British Columbia; Visiting Scholar: University of Oxford, Postdoc: California Institute of Technology

Awards and Honours

  • Western Chemistry, Research Excellence Award, 2025
  • Early Career Advisory Board, JACS Au, 2024-2025
  • Early Career Advisory Board, Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers, 2024-2025
  • Ontario Early Researcher Award (ERA-R19), 2024-2029
  • Polyhedron, Emerging Investigator in Inorganic Chemistry, 2024
  • Chemical Communications, Emerging Investigator, 2024
  • RSC Advances, Emerging Investigator, 2023
  • ACS Organic Inorganic Au, 2023 Rising Star in Organic & Inorganic Chemistry, 2023
  • Editorial Board Member, Journal of Coordination Chemistry, 2023-2026
  • Editorial Advisory Board, Organometallics, 2023-2026
  • Youth Editorial Board, Chemical Synthesis, 2022-2024
  • Journal of Coordination Chemistry Emerging Leader in Coordination Chemistry, 2022
  • Chemical Society Reviews Emerging Investigator, 2022
  • Dalton Transactions New Talent Americas, 2020
  • John C. Polanyi Award in Chemistry, 2020
  • Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2017-2019
  • Resnick Postdoctoral Prize Fellowship in Sustainability Science, 2017-2019
  • NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2017-2019
  • CSC Award for Graduate Work in Inorganic Chemistry (AGWIC), 2016
  • Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, 2013-2016
  • Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement (U. Oxford), 2013

RESEARCH

Research in the Drover group bridges the traditional limits of synthetic inorganic and organic chemistry, with an overarching goal to develop new functional molecules: ligands, transition metal, and main group compounds that promote the equitable use of resources, specifically with regard to global hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen cycles. This research program tackles grand challenges in small-molecule activation and fully complements Western’s strengths in chemical synthesis and materials science and drive to become a leader in carbon solutions. Project areas include: 

  1. Designing Ligands with Lewis Acidic Secondary Coordination Spheres: Diphosphine ligands have found great applicability in the realm of synthetic chemistry, with modifications to backbone length and R substituent leading to dramatic improvements in performance, selectivity, and net reactivity. Recent work in our laboratory has concentrated on the preparation of diphosphine ligands featuring borane groups in the secondary coordination sphere (SCS). We and others have shown that these groups are participatory in chemical transformations, offering stabilization to Lewis basic substrates such as amides, sulfides, hydroxides, alkyl anions, hydrides, pyridines, and more. 
  1. Expanding the Hydride Transfer Toolbox: Hydride transfer reactions are ubiquitous in chemistry, mediating challenging reductions of a range of organic and inorganic substrates. Detailed characterization of these reagents continues to be an important challenge of broad interest. We look to build new hydride transfer delivery reagents with an aim to apply such to reactions related to sustainability. 
  1. Fuels from Waste: Achieving Selectivity in CO₂ Reduction: Despite the abundance of CO₂ in Earth’s atmosphere, catalytic transformations of this molecule currently focus on reduction to formate (HCO₂⁻) or carbon monoxide (CO) - representing a bottleneck for accessing reduced C₁-equivalents such as methanol (CH₃OH) directly.  We aim to identify new catalysts for the selective reduction of CO₂, a waste/greenhouse gas, to CH₃OH.​ 
  1. New Avenues in Dihydrogen Chemistry: Oxidation, Activation, and Storage: Given increased global demand on energy, finding an alternative to fossil fuel combustion is requisite. The management of electron equivalents between H₂ and H⁺ via oxidation has been considered a modern solution to this problem, delivering clean energy in the form of H₂ fuel cells. To date, the golden standard for H₂ oxidation (HOR) is Pt-metal – a high-cost material that is also employed by the automotive industry. We seek to find a cheaper base metal alternative.

 

TEACHING

  • CHEM2281: Inorganic Chemistry II – Chemistry of the Main Group Elements
  • CHEM9541: X-ray Crystallography Theory and Practice

PUBLICATIONS

Link to updated publication list on Google Scholar.

Dilinaer, D.; Mateo, A.; Drover, M.W.* “Ligandless Iron-Catalyzed C(sp³)-H Bond Fluorination” ChemCatChem, 2025, accepted,  DOI: 10.1002/cctc.202501660

Mandapati, P.; Jobin, G.J.; Boyle, P.D.; Wei, X.; Fanchini, G.; Drover, M.W.* “Nickel Complexes of a Hybrid Cyclopentadienyl-Phosphine Ligand” Organometallics 2025, 44, 2671-2677. DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.5c00344

Zurakowski, J.A.; MacEachern, M.; Durfy, C.S.; Boyle, P.D.; Chitnis, S.S.*; Drover, M.W.* “Hydro- and Chloroelementation Reactions Across an Iron-Carbon Bond Using Heavy Group 15 Reagents” Chem. Commun. 2025, 61, 10969-10972. DOI: 10.1039/D5CC03258J   

Zurakowski, J.A.; Stadler, B.; Drover, M.W.*; Crimmin, M.R.* “C(sp2)-H Bond Activation with a Heterometallic Nickel-Aluminum Complex” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2025, 64, e202512684. DOI: 10.1002/anie.202512684

​Fisher, D.; Potter, M.; Mandapati, P.; Drover, M. W.*; Rondeau-Gagne, S.*; Mutus, B.* “A Tetrazolium Blue-Based Gasochromic Sensor for Hydrogen Gas” ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2025, 13, 15302-15310. DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.5c03394

Austen, B.J.H.; Drover, M. W.* “Flash Communication: Oxidative Addition of 3-Iodopyridine at a Nickel Diphosphine Complex: Probing Secondary Borane Effects​” Organometallics 2025, 44, 908-911. DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.5c00075

Potter, M.; Debnath, S.; Mandapati, P.; Schmidt, K.; Jansen, K.; Drover, M. W.*; Rondeau-Gagne, S.*; Mutus, B.* “The Selective and Sensitive Fluorogenic Detection of Hydrogen Gas Using an Azomethine-H Dye” ACS Sensors 2025, 10, 2173–2180. DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.4c03450

Zurakowski, J. A.; Taylor, L.J.; Drover, M.W.* “Flash Communication: Isonitrile Cyclization and Indole Tautomerization at a Tucked-In Iron Complex” Organometallics 2025, 44, 713-715. DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.4c00505

Durfy, C.S.; Huang, M.; Zurakowski, J.A.; Boyle, P.D.; Drover, M.W.* “Ring Strain Governs Transmetalation Behavior at a Tucked-In Iron Complex” Chem. Commun. 2025, 61, 3323-3326. DOI: 10.1039/D4CC06176D

Durfy, C.S.; Zurakowski, J.A.; Drover, M.W.* “CO2 Reduction at a Borane-Modified Iron Complex: A Secondary Coordination Sphere Strategy” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2025, e202421599. DOI: 10.1002/anie.202421599. *Selected as a “HOT” Article. *Invited “Introducing” Author Article. DOI: 10.1002/anie.202501753

Jobin, G.J.; Austen, B.J.H.; Drover, M.W.* “1,4-Diphosphorinane Synthesis at a Cationic Aluminum(III) Center” Organometallics 2025, 44, 148-157. DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.4c00415 

Schafer, L.L.*; Drover, M.W.*; Chitnis, S.S.; Chen, C.; Lord, R.; Thieuleux, C. “Applied Organometallic Chemistry: From Foundational to Translational” Organometallics 2024, 43, 2377-2380. DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.4c00428   

Hoffmann, K.; Noriega, R.P.; Boyle, P.D.; Drover, M.W.* “2-Alkylphosphino-1-Boraadamantanes” Chem. Commun. 2024, 60, 9222-9225. DOI: 10.1039/D4CC02665A

Dilinaer, A. (Dina); Jobin, G.; Drover, M.W.* “A Catalytic Collaboration: Pairing Transition Metals and Lewis acids for Application in Synthesis” Dalton Trans. 2024, 53, 13298-13307. DOI: 10.1039/D4DT01550A. 

Demchuk, M.J.; Zurakowski, J.A.; Drover, M.W.* “Tridentate k3-P,P,C Iridium Complexes: Influence of Ligand Saturation on Intramolecular C—H Bond Activation” Chem. Commun. 2024, 60, 7566-7569. DOI: 10.1039/D4CC01435A. 

Zurakowski, J.A.; Stocek, N.B.; Fanchini, G.; Drover, M.W.* “Oxidatively-Induced C(sp3)-C(sp3) Bond Formation at a Tucked-In Iron(III) Complex” Chem. Sci. 2024, 15, 10359-10365. DOI: 10.1039/D4SC03292F

Clapson, M.; Dilinaer, A. (Dina); Lanaque, T.C.; Austen, B.J.H.; Zurakowski, J.A. Drover, M.W.* “Ynone Co-Coordination at a Nickel Boranyl Complex: An Assessment of Secondary Coordination Sphere Effects” Inorg. Chem. 2024, 63, 6184-6191. DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.3c04264. 

Noriega, R.P.; Facchinato, D.; Zurakowski, J.A.; Drover, M.W.* “Tetraanionic Diphosphine Borate Ligand: Complexation with Platinum” Polyhedron 2024, 253, 116904-116909. DOI: 10.1016/j.poly.2024.116904. [invited] 

Zurakowski, J.A.; Durfy, C.S.; Drover, M.W.* “A Blueprint for Secondary Coordination Sphere Editing: Approaches Toward Lewis Acid CO2 Co-Activation” ChemSusChem, 2024, e202400039. DOI: 10.1002/cssc.202400039. 

Sharma, H.; Demchuk, M.J.; Debnath, S.; Drover, M.W.* “Electrochemical Properties of a Tunable Trisferrocenylborane” Organometallics 2024, 43, 2427-2433. DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.3c0047

Clapson, M.C.; Austen, B.J.H.; Zurakowski, J.A.; Drover, M.W.* “Anomalous Hydroboration at a Square Planar Ni(II) Diphenylvinylphosphine Complex” Organometallics 2024, 43, 119-125. DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.3c00442​ 

Drover, M.W.*; Chen, C.; Chitnis, S.S.; Lord, R.M.; Thieuleux, C.; Schafer, L.L.* “Bringing Applied Organometallic Chemistry to the Forefront: A Community Invitation” Organometallics 2024, 42, 3037-3041. DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.3c00417