Frederick N Tebbe

Frederick Nye Tebbe
Fred Tebbe in late 1980
Born	(1935-03-20)March 20, 1935 Oakland, California
Died	September 28, 1995(1995-09-28) (aged 60) Hockessin, Delaware
Nationality	USA
Fields	Organometallic Chemistry
Institutions	DuPont Central Research
Alma mater	Pennsylvania State University, University of Indiana
Thesis	Studies of Interconversions of Boron Hydrides (1963)
Doctoral advisor	Riley Schaeffer
Known for	Tebbe's reagent, borane chemistry
Influences	George Parshall
Influenced	Richard Schrock
Spouse	Margaret Manzer

Frederick Nye Tebbe was born in Oakland, California on March 20, 1935. His father, Charles L. Tebbe, worked for the United States Forest Service so Fred’s early education took place in Montana, Oregon, Maryland and Pennsylvania. He married Margaret Manzer in 1960, and they had a son (Andy, born in 1966) and a daughter (Sarah, born in 1971). He died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Delaware on September 28, 1995.

Fred obtained a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University. His senior research focused on the synthesis of diboron tetrachloride from BCl3 and Hg discharge cells under the direction of Professor Thomas Wartik. Wartik encouraged Fred to join the group of Professor Riley Schaeffer at Indiana University. Instead, Fred spent a year at Montana State University studying psychology and philosophy: After this interlude and thoughts of going into Forestry, Fred finally decided to join Schaeffer at Indiana.

The area of borane chemistry was growing rapidly, in part due to the Cold War and national security interests. In addition to the synthesis of pyrophoric and explosive compounds, Fred used ¹⁰B NMR spectroscopy to understand the mechanism of the aggregation of boranes into the homologs B₄H₁₀, B₅H₉, and B₅H₁₁. He demonstrated that ¹⁰B-enriched diborane in diethylether rapidly exchanges all ten boron positions in the anion B₁₀H₁₃⁻. His dissertation, “Studies of Interconversions of Boron Hydrides,” was completed in 1963.

Fred did two years of postdoctoral work with Professor Fred Hawthorne at the University of California, Riverside. During that time, he greatly expanded the range of known carboranes to include polyhedral B₉C₂H₁₁, B₈C₂H₁₀, B₇C₂H₉, and B₆C₂H₈ carboranes, the B₇C₂H₁₃ system, and their derivatives.