Actinide metal amides

Insertion of carbon monoxide, which is so common for metal-alkyl bonds, is very rare for metal amides but has been documented for amides of the actinides (equations 81 and 82),225... 

Although insertion of CO into a metal-Me bond is well known in transition metal chemistry, among metal amides it appears to have been unambiguously observed only for alkali and actinide metal derivatives. In the NaN(SiMe3)2/CO system the expected product Na[CON(SiMe3)2], if formed, decomposes ... 

The hydroamination of olefins has been shown to occur by the sequence of oxidative addition, migratory insertion, and reductive elimination in only one case. Because amines are nucleophilic, pathways are available for the additions of amines to olefins and alkynes that are unavailable for the additions of HCN, silanes, and boranes. For example, hydroaminations catalyzed by late transition metals are thought to occur in many cases by nucleophilic attack on coordinated alkenes and alkynes or by nucleophilic attack on ir-allyl, iT-benzyl, or TT-arene complexes. Hydroaminations catalyzed by lanthanide and actinide complexes occur by insertion of an olefin into a metal-amide bond. Finally, hydroamination catalyzed by dP group 4 metals have been shown to occur through imido complexes. In this case, a [2+2] cycloaddition forms the C-N bond, and protonolysis of the resulting metallacycle releases the organic product. 

The metals thorium and uranium (as with the chemistry in general of these elements) dominate actinide aryloxide chemistry. Synthetic strategies normally focus on the halides reacting with group 1 metal aryloxides or reaction of metal amides with phenols. An important piece of early work was the demonstrated interconversion of eight-coordinate [UMe4(dmpe)2] and [M(OPh)4(dmpe)2] (M = Th, U Table 6.20) by addition of phenol or MeLi to each substrate respectively. The reaction of the cyclometallated... 

A large number of urea and substituted urea complexes with actinide(IV) compounds are known in these the ligands are bonded to the metal via the carbonyl oxygen atom, and these complexes are therefore described in the section dealing with carboxylic add amide complexes (p. 1164). 

The extensive chemistry of amido complexes, and, more particularly, of alkylamido complexes, reveals that the planar form is almost invariably found, along with bridging amides (221). Much attention has been paid to the synthesis of metal amido complexes of early transition metals, lanthanides and actinides. The amido group, particularly where it is bulky, confers unusual low coordination numbers on the metals and can also produce materials with considerable kinetic stability toward attack by nucleophiles (42, 67). However, the relevance of this extensive and fascinating chemistry to nitrogen fixation is somewhat problematic. 

Alkoxide and aryloxide ligands are excellent ligands for the actinides. As a result, these ligands have been studied extensively in the coordination chemistry and reactivity of tri-, tetra-, penta-, and hexavalent actinides. The alkoxides and aryloxides can be synthesized by a variety of routes the two most popular routes include direct reaction of actinide halides with alkali metal salts of the alkoxide or aryloxide of interest and protonolysis of actinide amides by alcohols. 

The silyl amide type ligands have been used extensively in rare earth chemistry, as well as in actinide and transition metal chemistry, to stabilize electronically unsaturated metal centers due to the available lone pair on the nitrogen donor atom. Because of the relatively larger steric encumbrance, the rare earth complexes with silyl amide type ligands often exhibit low coordination numbers. As a consequence, the large and electropositive rare earth metal centers are accessible to external reagents, which make them more active in many reactions. 

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