Career at DuPont Earl Muetterties joined
DuPont Central Research Department and was promoted to research supervisor in 1955. His early contributions were on the inorganic fluorine compounds, especially of sulfur and phosphorus. In collaboration with
William D. Phillips he exploited
NMR for study of dynamic processes in
inorganic fluoride compounds. Muetterties's work on boron hydride clusters led to the work on several polyhedral borane anions such as
B12H122−. He was an inventor on some basic findings with the polyhedral borate anions. In addition to the polyhedral boranes, the program explored pi-allyl, fluoroalkyl, and boron hydride complexes of the
transition metals. Research also extended to stereochemically-non-rigid complexes. In 1965, Muetterties became Associate Director in the
DuPont Central Research. In addition to groups in homogeneous and heterogeneous
catalysis, groups were established in the synthesis and
spectroscopy of
organometallic compounds. He was also a prolific inventor. After a two-month lectureship at
Cambridge University in 1972, he assumed a professorship at
Cornell University in 1973, conducting research on organometallic chemistry and homogeneous catalysis, sometimes in collaboration with
Roald Hoffman. In 1979, Muetterties moved to the
University of California, Berkeley, where he continued research in
homogeneous catalysis and
cluster chemistry. At Berkeley he also worked on
surface science, and he maintained a research facility at the
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Muetterties helped establish the
American Chemical Society journals
Inorganic Chemistry and
Organometallics. He was on the
editorial board of
Inorganic Syntheses and edited Volume 10. He also edited books on boron chemistry and transition-metal hydrides and wrote reviews on complexes with unusual coordination numbers. A tribute to Muetterties has also been published. ==References==