In the mid-1980s, his group demonstrated that, even in simple cases, the
bromonium ion intermediates were reversibly formed.
So did the segment on stereospecific additions to cis- and trans-2-butene through a
bromonium ion intermediate, which can be very difficult for a student to understand.
His work in the area of electrophilic halogenation of olefins has centered mainly on the isolation and structural characterization of stable
bromonium ions, and the determination of the factors that influence their partitioning in solution.