Dr. Noé Zúñiga Villarreal received his B.A. in Chemical Engineering in 1981 from the Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Química e Industrias Extractivas (Instituto Politécnico Nacional) and his Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry from CINVESTAV, Instituto Politécnico Nacional in 1991. He taught organic and inorganic chemistry courses at the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Ecatepec. In December 1992 he joined the Instituto de Química of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; in the same year, Dr. Zúñiga was awarded the Academia Mexicana de Química Inorgánica Award for his Ph.D. Thesis ‘Reactivity studies of the η5pentadienyltricarbonyl- manganese. Characterization of the corresponding neutral amino-and phosphapentenyl derivatives’. He was a Visiting Professor at the Instituto de Química Organometálica ‘Enrique Moles’ in Oviedo, España (1998-99). In 2003 he participated in the Academic Exchange Program of the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional.

Dr. Noé Zúñiga Villarreal focused on Transition metal carbonyls of group 7, specifically rhenium and manganese, have attracted our attention to study their compounds with acyclic organic and inorganic unsaturated ligands. We have developed novel synthetic strategies to prepare diverse organothiolato,-selenolato manganese carbonyls using as precursor tricarbonyl (pentadienyl)manganese. The dichalcogenoimidodiphosphinate anions have proven adequate for preparing a wide variety of complexes upon reaction with manganese and rhenium carbonyls. We have become of late interested in studying the activation of small non polar molecules with Ir(I) phosphinoyltriazolato complexes.