Bonding transition-metal alkyls

The results of polymerizing ethylene using varying sigma-bonded transition metal alkyl compounds are summarized in Table VII. It is evident that none of the catalysts are very active and are comparable with the simple allyl compounds listed in Table I. 

Ballard, D. G. H., Jones, E., Wyatt, R. J., Murray, R. T., and Robinson, P. A. 1974. Highly active polymerization catalysts of long life derived from a- and Jt-bonded transition metal alkyl compounds. Polymer 15 169-174. 

Transition metal alkyls are often relatively unstable earlier views had attributed this either to an inherently weak M—C bond and/or to the ready homolysis of this bond to produce free radicals. Furthermore, the presence of stabilizing ir-acceptor ligands such as Cp , CO, or RjP was regarded as almost obligatory. However, (1) the M—C bond is not particularly weak compared say to the M—N bond, and (2) the presence of the new type of ligand on the metal could make the complex kinetically stable thus, even isoleptic complexes, i.e., compounds of the form MR , might be accessible 78, 239). These predictions have largely been borne out (see Table VII). 

Palladium(II) complexes possessing bidentate ligands are known to efficiently catalyze the copolymerization of olefins with carbon monoxide to form polyketones.594-596 Sulfur dioxide is an attractive monomer for catalytic copolymerizations with olefins since S02, like CO, is known to undergo facile insertion reactions into a variety of transition metal-alkyl bonds. Indeed, Drent has patented alternating copolymerization of ethylene with S02 using various palladium(II) complexes.597 In 1998, Sen and coworkers also reported that [(dppp)PdMe(NCMe)]BF4 was an effective catalyst for the copolymerization of S02 with ethylene, propylene, and cyclopentene.598 There is a report of the insertion reactions of S02 into PdII-methyl bonds and the attempted spectroscopic detection of the copolymerization of ethylene and S02.599... 

Attempts to synthesize transition metal alkyl compounds have been continuous since 1952 when Herman and Nelson (1) reported the preparation of the compound C H6>Ti(OPri)3 in which the phenyl group was sigma bonded to the metal. This led to the synthesis by Piper and Wilkinson (2) of (jr-Cpd)2 Ti (CH3)2 in 1956 and a large number of compounds of titanium with a wide variety of ligands such as ir-Cpd, CO, pyridine, halogen, etc., all of which were inactive for polymerization. An important development was the synthesis of methyl titanium halides by Beerman and Bestian (3) and Ti(CH3)4 by Berthold and Groh (4). These compounds show weak activity for ethylene polymerization but are unstable at temperatures above — 70°C. At these temperatures polymerizations are difficult and irreproduceable and consequently the polymerization behavior of these compounds has been studied very little. In 1963 Wilke (5) described a new class of transition metal alkyl compounds—x-allyl complexes,... 

Transition metal alkyl compounds react with the -OH groups on the surface of silica in a manner similar to that described for the silanol [reaction (13)] and as with the latter more than one type of bonding is possible. Silica dried at 200°C reacts with Zr(allyl)4 to give two molecules of propene per metal atom and utilizing in the course of this process two -OH groups per metal atom. The chemistry of the process is accurately described by the equation... 

It has been shown (p. 266) that transition metal alkyl compounds containing Cpd and C6H6 groups, ir-bonded to the metal inactivate the metal center for polymerization. It has also been shown by Nyholm and Aresta (45), in the platinum series, that five- or six-membered rings containing only sigma and ir-carbon-to-metal bonds are very stable compounds. These observations add chemical plausibility to reaction (29). 

In view of the fact that early transition metal alkyls insert CO under very mild conditions (2, 5.) we chose to examine the reactions of electron-rich metal hydrides ( ) with the resultant dihapto acyl complexes. Such acyls obviously benefit from reduction of the CO bond order from three (in OO) to two. More significantly, the dihapto binding mode will significantly enhance the electrophilic character of the acyl carbon. 

E) Sigma-bond metathesis. Dihydrogen is observed to react with transition-metal-alkyl bonds even when the metal lacks lone pairs. In this case the reaction cannot be explained in terms of the oxidative-addition or reductive-elimination motif. Instead, we can view this reaction as a special type of insertion reaction whereby the ctmr bond pair takes the donor role of the metal lone pair and donates into the cthh antibond. When the M—R bonds are highly polarized as M+R, the process could also be described as a concerted electrophilic H2 activation in which R acts as the base accepting H+. 

A reaction which is rather new and not mentioned in older textbooks is the so-called o-bond metathesis. It is a concerted 2+2 reaction immediately followed by its retrograde reaction giving metathesis. Both late and early transition metal alkyls are prone to this reaction, but for d° early transition metals there is no other mechanism than o-bond metathesis at hand. Many similar reactions such as the reaction of metal alkyls with other HX compounds could be described as if they would follow this pathway, but the use of the term o-bond metathesis is restricted to those reactions in which one reacting species is a metal hydrocarbyl or metal hydride and the other reactant is a hydrocarbon or dihydrogen. In Figure 2.30 the reaction has been depicted. 

Numerous examples have been reported of transition metal alkyl complexes which can be converted into carbene complexes by a-hydride abstraction [429-431], This process can also proceed intramolecularly by oxidative insertion of the metal into the a-C-H bond. Figure 3.8. shows some illustrative examples of iron, rhenium, and... 

There would appear to be two distinct modes of reactivity of early transition metal alkyls with O2. When the metal is not in its highest oxidation state, an O2 complex of variable stability may form, and its subsequent reactivity may or may not involve the metal-carbon bond. The formation of remarkable stable 0x0 alkyls is an example of this pathway. In contrast, d°-alkyls react with O2 by a radical chain mechanism that invariable leads to formation of alkoxide complexes labile alkylperoxo ligands are clearly imphcated as intermediates in these reactions. 

Three years ago, while we were considering possible reasons for the general inability of transition metals to insert into and activate C-H bonds, our attention turned to the question of the instability of transition metal alkyl hydride complexes. We have listed the few alkyl hydride complexes of which we are aware (i) (one additional case (2) recently came to our attention) as well as some of the only slightly more numerous cases of substituted alkyl hydrides stabilized by chelation (3). In contrast, there are enormous numbers of polyalkyls (4, 5) and poly hydrides (6). While rarity does not logically imply instability, it does suggest it, so we considered possible mechanistic explanations for the assumed rapid decomposition of ci -MLn(R)(H) relative to cis-MLnR2 and cis-MLnH2. We have focused on octahedral complexes since they are both more important and more numerous. 

At present, however, most experimental evidence supports the mechanism in which propagation takes place at the transition-metal-alkyl bond. Of the different interpretations, the one proposed by Cossee and Arlman303-306 is the most widely accepted.125 254 294... 

The strongest evidence in favor of propagation at the transition metal-alkyl bond is the existence of one-component, that is, metal-alkyl-free polymerization catalysts. Of these systems the Phillips catalyst was studied most thoroughly because of its commercial importance. Originally it was believed that Cr(VI) ions stabilized in the form of surface chromate and perhaps dichromate resulting from the interaction of Cr03 with surface hydroxyl groups above 400°C are the active species in polymerization 286,294... 

Ionization Energies Relating to Ionization of Metal- Carbon Bonds of Transition Metal Alkyls 1... 

Among these compounds, transition metal alkyls are the most widespread. For simple metal alkyls, the M — R bond distance is typically 190 to 220 pm. This is approximately the sum of the covalent radii of carbon and metal, rc = 77 pm and rM 120pm [184h]. Simple alkyls are simple a-donors (Fig. 2.5). 

Few transition-metal-alkyl bond-dissociation energies are known reliably (16). Potential approaches to the estimation of such dissociation energies encompass the following ... 

Finally, the apparent thermal stabilities of alkyl-cobalamins, as well as of some of the other transition-metal-alkyl compounds that have been examined in the course of these studies, generally are higher than would correspond to their metal-C bond-dissociation energies. The most probable explanation for this is that, in the absence of effective radical scavengers, homolytic dissociation of metal-alkyl bonds occurs reversibly because of selective recombination of the initially produced radicals and metal complexes. 

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