Chromium hydroxo-bridged complexes species

There are several examples of well-characterized tri- and tetranu-clear hydroxo-bridged complexes of chromium(III) and cobalt(III). Penta- and hexanuclear aqua chromium(III) complexes have been prepared in solution, but their structure and properties are unknown. Oligomers of nuclearity higher than four have not been reported for cobalt(IIl), with the exception of some hetero-bridged heteronuclear species (193, 194). There appear to be no reports of rhodium(III) or iridium(III) complexes of nuclearity higher than two. 

Analysis of the products of these cleavage reactions has often served as proof of the structures of the polynuclear species. Cleavage of hydroxo-bridged complexes of nuclearity higher than two will in most cases yield at least two different mononuclear species. Identification of these species and determination of the relative ratio in which they are formed reduce the number of possible bridged skeletons greatly, and the studies of polynuclear ammine and amine chromium(III) made by Andersen et al. (mentioned in Section IV) provide many examples of this, one of which is shown in Eq. (48) above (see also Section II,A). 

Hydrolysis of polynuclear hydroxo-bridged chromium (III) complexes in concentrated solutions of strong acid yields the corresponding mononuclear species. Such cleavage reactions are fast in comparison with the hydrolysis in dilute acid and proceed with retention of configuration of the mononuclear entities. A few representative examples are shown in Eqs. (46)-(49) (40, 42,161, 252). 

Finally, it should be noted that this chemistry may have biological relevance. Several metalloenzymes are believed to contain more than one metal ion bound at the active site. One relevant example is the glucose tolerance factor (GTF) which is important for the metabolic degradation of glucose (398-401). GTF is a low-molecular-weight protein which contains chromium(III). Its structure is not known, but it has been suggested that the active site contains a dinuclear chromium(III) complex (401). The fact that hydroxo-bridged dinuclear chromium(III) complexes exhibit reactions which are often very fast compared with those observed for the parent mononuclear species seems to support such a proposal. 

Catalysis by chromium(n) involves the formation of a Cr —OH—Cr hydroxo-bridged species. Some preliminary data are also reported for the analogous nicotinamide system. A similar study involves the decomposition of a uranium(v)-chromium(ra) dinuclem complex in the presence of excess chromium(n). Approximate rate data for the uncatalysed reactions are shown in Table 12. 

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