Carved reduction

The synthesis of Cp 3U Cp = p -CsMes carved a new path for the researchers to go one step ahead in the electrochemical studies of organoac-tinide complexes. The reduction reaction involving more than two electrons are not common for metal complexes containing just one metal. However, the synthesis of complexes of the type Cp 3M led to the development of sterically induced reduction (SIR) chemistry in which sterically crowded complexes of redox inactive metals act as reductants [87,88]. Evans et al. showed that the sterically induced reduction couple, U(III)/U(IV), can act as a multielectron reductant [89]. As an example, Cp 3U reacts as a three-electron reductant with 1,3,5,7-C8H8, (Eq. 12) in which one electron arises from U(III) (Eq. 13) and two result from two CsMes /CsMes half reactions (Eq. 14) presumably via SIR. This phenomenon was further corroborated by the stepwise reduction of phenyl halide with Cp 3lJ (Eq. 15) ... 

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