Dilithium, bonding

C09-0048. Molecules of dilithium can form in the gas phase at low pressure. Describe the bonding in L12 and include a picture of the overlapping orbitals. 

The pale yellow salt K2[SN2] is prepared from (Me3SiN)2S and K(OtBu).70 The dilithium salt is generated from (Me3SnN)2S and MeLi.71 The S=N bond distances in the [K(18-crown-6)]+ salt are ca. 0.05 A longer than the S=0 bonds in S02.72... 

The synthesis of crystalline disodium derivatives of primary phos-phanes and arsanes turned out to be more difficult than that of dilithium compounds. The reaction of NaN(SiMe3)2 with 2c led, as in its lithiation with BuLi, under redox reaction (H2 elimination, As-As bond formation) to the Na2As6 dimer 12 (Eq. 5). The latter has been... 

In contrast to magnesium phosphandiides, analogous tin(II) derivatives possess more covalent metal-phosphorus bonds. This basic difference is also apparent for dilithium versus dicopper(I) phosphandiides (see Section II and III). It is, therefore, interesting to assess the structural and electronic features of such species in a similar way. To date, only three tin(II) phosphandiide derivatives have been prepared... 

The first derivative of carba-nido-tetraboranes(7), 16a, was prepared by reaction of anionic 17 with iodomethane and characterized by NMR spectroscopy and by model computations (Scheme 3.2-10) [28]. The structurally analyzed 16b is obtained by deuteration of the dianion 10a2 [20] mentioned in Section 3.2.2.2. The results of an X-ray structural analysis of its dilithium salt are discussed in Section 3.2.8.3. The lithium cations are coordinated side-on to the B-B 2c2e bonds just as predicted for the aromatic U2B3H3 [6]. Obviously, (Li+)210a2 is a 2e homoaromatic. Since the positions of the lithium cations resemble those of the deuter-... 

A first structural characterization of a cyclobutadiene dianion was performed by Boche and coworkers, who generated the dilithium salt of the 1,2-diphenylbenzocyclobutadiene dianion (143) (by deprotonation with n-butyllithium in the presence of TMEDA) (Figure 17) . Nevertheless, the molecular structure of 143 resembles more the structures of dilithiated alkenes, synthesized by reaction of the corresponding alkynes with metallic lithium. In that class of compounds, carbon-carbon bonds, capped by two lithium centres, are the structural motif (see Section II. E). 

Various diboriodilithiomethanes of type 225 were synthesized by Bemdt and coworkers, adding different aryllithium compounds to the boron-carbon bonds of compounds 224a-e (Scheme 77) . The dilithium compounds have been characterized in the solid state by X-ray structural analysis. 225a-e adopt the structure of a 1,3-diborataallene system, where lithium-diethyl ether units are bridging the twisted B-C-B axis from both sides. 

According to Widdowson, [(methoxymethoxy)benzene]tricarbonylchromium (448) was deprotonated with enantiotopos differentiation by n-BuLi/(—)-sparteine (11), and the lithium intermediate 449 was trapped by various electrophiles to give the products 451 with ee values up to 97% (equation 122) . Surprisingly, opposite enantiomers are formed when stoichiometric or excess amounts of base are applied. The authors presume that in the dilithium intermediate 450 the C—Li bond (in the rear) has a higher reactivity than the other one (pointed to the front). The deprotonation procedure was also applied to a couple of 1,4-disubstituted chromium complexes . 

Another type of adducts [8, Eq. (3)] was formed by the reaction of di(fert-butyl)aluminum chloride with dilithium bis(trimethylsilyl)hydrazide in low yields below 30% [19]. The structure of 8 consists of a distorted heterocubane with four vertices occupied by nitrogen atoms, two of which are connected by an intact N—N bond across one face of the cube. The cation positions are occupied by two aluminum and two lithium atoms, of which the last ones bridge the N—bond. Part of the hydrazide molecules was cleaved, and the aluminum atoms are bonded to one ferf-butyl group only. On the basis of the NMR spectroscopic characterization many unknown by-products were formed in the course of that reaction, and no information is available concerning the reaction mechanism. Compound 8 may be described as an adduct of dilithium bis(trimethylsilyl)hydrazide to a dimeric iminoalane containing a four-membered AI2N2 heterocycle. Further... 

The weakness of the covalent bond in dilithium is understandable in terms of the low effective nuclear charge, which allows the 2s orbital to be very diffuse. The addition of an electron to the lithium atom is exothermic only to the extent of 59.8 kJ mol-1, which indicates the weakness of the attraction for the extra electron. By comparison, the exother-micity of electron attachment to the fluorine atom is 333 kJ mol-1. The diffuseness of the 2s orbital of lithium is indicated by the large bond length (267 pm) in the dilithium molecule. The metal exists in the form of a body-centred cubic lattice in which the radius of the lithium atoms is 152 pm again a very high value, indicative of the low cohesiveness of the metallic structure. The metallic lattice is preferred to the diatomic molecule as the more stable state of lithium. 

More recently, Hoppe et all63 also reported a stereoselective synthesis of a P -amino-u -hydroxy enone and its transformation to a 1,2-dihydroxyethylene isostere (Scheme 29). The addition of dilithium dimethylcyanocuprate to the conjugated C=C bond proceeds smoothly to produce a Z-enolate. The C-methoxycarbonylation with methyl cyanoformate forms the epimeric mixture of the 3-oxo ester. The product is then reduced with sodium cyanobo-rohyde to provide a protected form of the 1,2-dihydroxyethylene isostere. 

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