Acceptor transition-metal complexes

Auxiliary on the acceptor transition-metal complex REFERENCES... 

Carbon monoxide [630-08-0] (qv), CO, the most important 7T-acceptor ligand, forms a host of neutral, anionic, and cationic transition-metal complexes. There is at least one known type of carbonyl derivative for every transition metal, as well as evidence supporting the existence of the carbonyls of some lanthanides (qv) and actinides (1) (see AcTINIDES AND THANSACTINIDES COORDINATION COMPOUNDS). 

The nitrogen atom in ri -pyrrolylmanganesetricarbonyl forms a donor-acceptor bond with transition metals. Complexes in which the pyrrolyl ring behaves as a tt ligand for the manganese atom and n-donor for the other metal were synthesized 12 (M = Mn, Re) [78JOM(157)431]. The binuclear heterobimetallic complexes... 

Neutral transition-metal complexes that are not fully coordinatively saturated possess nucleophile metal centers capable of coordinating to electrophiles. On the other hand, group-IIIB halides serve as typical electron-pair acceptors and are, therefore, able to interact coordinatively with basic metal complexes. 

Boron in heterocycles is an electron acceptor, and the following neutral carbocy-cles form transition-metal complexes via basic metal centers ... 

Dihydro-lH-l,5,2-azasilaboroles derive from the 2,5-dihydro-lH-l,2-aza-boroles ( 6.5.3.3) by substitution of the carbon neighboring N by a silicon atom. They may act as four-electron donors using electron density from the C=C double bond and the N atom. The B atom behaves as an acceptor center. Two pathways are known for complex synthesis reaction with a generated transition-metal complex fragment and reaction with metal atoms by the metal-vapor synthesis method. 

The metal complexes discussed thus far bear little resemblance to the vast majority of common transition-metal complexes. Transition-metal chemistry is dominated by octahedral, square-planar, and tetrahedral coordination geometries, mixed ligand sets, and adherence to the 18-electron rule. The following three sections introduce donor-acceptor interactions that, although not unique to bonding in the d block, make the chemistry of the transition metals so distinctive. 

Why are transition metals so well suited for catalysis A complete treatment of this critical question lies well beyond the scope of this book, but we can focus on selected aspects of bond activation and reactivity for dihydrogen and alkene bonds as important special cases. Before discussing specific examples that involve formal metal acidity or hypovalency, it is convenient to sketch a more general localized donor-acceptor overview of catalytic interactions in transition-metal complexes involving dihydrogen49 (this section) and alkenes (Section 4.7.4). 

The abundance of accessible donor and acceptor orbitals in common transition-metal complexes facilitates low-energy bond rearrangements such as insertion ( oxidative-addition ) reactions, thus enabling the critically important catalytic potential of metals. 

It has long been assumed that the rates of inner-sphere electron-transfer reactions for transition-metal complexes should be sensitive to the nature of the donor and acceptor orbital symmetries. Efforts to... 

A large proportion of mononuclear transition-metal complexes involving 7r-acceptor ligands can be considered to possess the 18 electrons of an inert-gas shell configuration. Justification for this can read-... 

The isomerization, itself, originates from the a complex (B in Figure 3). However the total activation energy depends critically on the relative energy of A and B (Figure 3). An alkyne C=C triple bond binds more efficiently to a transition metal complex than a o C-H bond since the % C-C orbital is a better electron-donor and the 71 C-C orbital a better electron acceptor than the a and a C-H orbitals, respectively. However, the difference in energy between the two isomers is relatively low for a d6 metal center because four-electron repulsion between an occupied metal d orbital and the other n C-C orbital destabilizes the alkyne complex. This contributes to facilitate the transformation for the Ru11 system studied by Wakatsuki et al. 

Organic Electroreductive Coupling Reactions using Transition Metal Complexes as Catalysts Table 11. Co- or Ni-catalyzed intramolecular additions to Michael acceptors... 

Electrophilic transition metal complexes can react with organic ylides to yield alkylidene complexes. A possible mechanism would be the initial formation of alkyl complexes, which are converted into the final carbene complexes by electrophilic a-abstraction (Figure 3.18). This process is particularly important for the generation of acceptor-substituted carbene complexes (Section 4.1). 

Transition metal complexes which react with diazoalkanes to yield carbene complexes can be catalysts for diazodecomposition (see Section 4.1). In addition to the requirements mentioned above (free coordination site, electrophi-licity), transition metal complexes can catalyze the decomposition of diazoalkanes if the corresponding carbene complexes are capable of transferring the carbene fragment to a substrate with simultaneous regeneration of the original complex. Metal carbonyls of chromium, iron, cobalt, nickel, molybdenum, and tungsten all catalyze the decomposition of diazomethane [493]. Other related catalysts are (CO)5W=C(OMe)Ph [509], [Cp(CO)2Fe(THF)][BF4] [510,511], and (CO)5Cr(COD) [52,512]. These compounds are sufficiently electrophilic to catalyze the decomposition of weakly nucleophilic, acceptor-substituted diazoalkanes. 

The most important synthetic access to acceptor-substituted carbene complexes is the reaction of ylides with electrophilic, coordinatively unsaturated transition metal complexes (Figure 4.1 see also Section 3.1.3). 

The most frequently used ylides for carbene-complex generation are acceptor-substituted diazomethanes. As already mentioned in Section 3.1.3.1, non-acceptor-substituted diazoalkanes are strong C-nucleophiles, easy to convert into carbene complexes with a broad variety of transition metal complexes. Acceptor-substituted diazomethanes are, however, less nucleophilic (and more stable) than non-acceptor-substituted diazoalkanes, and require catalysts of higher electrophilicity to be efficiently decomposed. Not surprisingly, the very stable bis-acceptor-substituted diazomethanes can be converted into carbene complexes only with strongly electrophilic catalysts. This order of reactivity towards electrophilic transition metal complexes correlates with the reactivity of diazoalkanes towards other electrophiles, such as Brpnsted acids or acyl halides. 

Table 4.1. Transition metal complexes suitable for the conversion of acceptor-substituted diazomethanes into carbene complexes.

Ylides other than acceptor-substituted diazomethanes have only occasionally been used as carbene-complex precursors. lodonium ylides (PhI=CZ Z ) [1017,1050-1056], sulfonium ylides [673], sulfoxonium ylides [1057] and thiophenium ylides [1058,1059] react with electrophilic transition metal complexes to yield intermediates capable of undergoing C-H or N-H insertions and olefin cyclopropanations. 

Acceptor-substituted carbene complexes are highly reactive intermediates, capable of transforming organic compounds in many different ways. Typical reactions include insertion into o-bonds, cyclopropanation, and ylide formation. Generally, acceptor-substituted carbene complexes are not isolated and used in stoichiometric amounts, but generated in situ from a carbene precursor and transition metal derivative. Usually only catalytic quantities of a transition metal complex are required for complete conversion of a carbene precursor via an intermediate carbene complex into the final product. 

Abstract The theoretical and experimental research on carbodiphosphoranes C(PR3)2 and related compounds CL2, both as free molecules and as ligands in transition metal complexes, is reviewed. Carbodiphosphoranes are examples of divalent carbon(O) compounds CL2 which have peculiar donor properties that are due to the fact that the central carbon atom has two lone electron pairs. The bonding situation is best described in terms of L C L donor acceptor interactions which distinguishes CL2 compounds (carbones) from divalent carbon(ll) compounds (carbenes) through the number of lone electron pairs. The stmctures and stabilities of transition metal complexes with ligands CL2 can be understood and predictions can be made considering the double donor ability of the carbone compounds. 

A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the study of transition-metal complexes containing two or more metal centers. These complexes are useful as model systems for the study of intermolecular interactions between metal centers as well as the examination of electron-transfer reactions between donor and acceptor species. 

Wozniak and coworkers described recently the first heterodinuclear bismacrocyclic transition metal complex 34 + (Fig. 14.5) that exhibits potential-driven intramolecular motion of the interlocked crown ether unit.25 26 Although the system contains transition metals, the main interaction between the various subunits, which also allowed to construct catenane 34+, is an acceptor-donor interaction of the charge transfer type. 

Compounds of transition metal complexes possessing a nonbonding electron pair with boranes (BX3) can be regarded classically as boron complexes with a transition metal ligand. In a broader sense, however, boranes can be classified as acceptor ligands.154,155 Thus, coordination of a borane results in a decrease of the electron density on the metal atom. In the case of carbonyl complexes this effect is reflected in the increase, by 20-100 cm-1, of the CO stretching frequency.154-156 It follows from the foregoing that stable coordination of boranes is... 

---