Cyclopentadienyl ligands compounds with

Many other shapes are possible for complexes. The simplest are linear, with coordination number 2. An example is dimethylmercury(O), Hg(CI l,)2 (4), which is a toxic compound formed by bacterial action on aqueous solutions of I Ig ions. Coordination numbers as high as 12 are found for members of the / block, but they are rare in the d block. One interesting type of d-mctal compound in which there are 10 links between the ligands and the central metal ion is ferrocene, dicyciopentadi-enyliron(O), [Fe(C5H5)2] (5). Ferrocene is an aptly named sandwich compound, with the two planar cyclopentadienyl ligands the bread and the metal atom the filling. The formal name for a sandwich compound is a metallocene. 

Metallocenes with substituted cyclopentadienyl rings. Metallocenes with methylated rings were among the first heavy alkaline earth metallocenes to be structurally characterized, but many other substituents have been incorporated into bis(cyclopentadienyl) complexes. Under this classification are included compounds with indenyl ligands, which in... 

Cyclopentadienyl ligands have become extremely important in catalysis for metal such as Ti, Zr, and Hf (Chapter 10) and in academic studies of related elements such as Ta. Ethylene polymerisation with the use of CpiTiCE (alkylated with aluminium alkyl compounds) has been known for many decades, but the intensive interest in derivatives of these compounds started in the early 1980 s following the discovery of MAO (methaluminoxane - see chapter 10) which boosted metallocene catalyst activities by several orders of magnitude. Commercial interest focussed on ethylene copolymers (LLDPE where more homogeneous comonomer incorporation resulted in greatly improved copolymer properties) and in enantiospecific polymerisations for propene, styrene, etc. 

The chemistry of rhenium(I) is dominated by organometallic compounds which are not covered by this review. Thus, cyclopentadienyl and related compounds, where the organometallic part of the molecule dominate the properties will generally not be considered. Nevertheless, compounds with carbonyl or isocyanide co-ligands will be treated when they can be regarded as constituents of a typical coordination compound or the compounds are of fundamental interest in a radiopharmaceutical context such as the hexakis(isocyanide)rhenium(I) cations. For the same reason a separate section has been included which gives a brief summary of recent attempts to develop synthetic routes to tiicarbonylrhenium(I) complexes for nuclear medical applications. 

Fig.5 Examples of simple metallocene structures a parallel sandwich, b multi-decker sandwich, c half-sandwich, d bent/tilted sandwich and e compounds with differently bonded cyclopentadienyl ligands...

The bonding of the three allylic carbon atoms to the metal in these compounds may be regarded in terms of a bidentate ligand. In the dimeric allyl-metal halides, this is consistent with the normal tetra-coordination, and in the cyclopentadienyl-allyl compounds it is interesting to note that the metal atoms are effectively penta-coordinated. Diamagnetism is preserved throughout. 

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