Basis of Carbon Monoxide Chemistry

Carbon monoxide versatility hides an unexpected simplicity of its main chemical mechanisms as few as four or five principles are sufficient to explain and account for most of the several hundred different reactions pubhshed in the literature. 

Let us first acknowledge that the molecule is a poorly reactive gas per se metallic or organometallic catalysts are essential in order to activate the molecule emd achieve the desired reactions. This activation is generally achieved by coordinating carbon monoxide to the metallic center of the catalyst, i.e. by formation of metal carbonyl species. 

All the metals given in Table I are known to yield such species it is furthermore generally accepted that these metallocarbonyl complexes are more stable when the metal center  

Mortreux and F. Petit (Eds,), Industrial Applications of Homogeneous Catalysis, 19—64. 1988 byD. Reidel Publishing Company, All Rights Reserved, 

The maximum stability is obtained with a valence number of either 16 or 

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