Germanium—gold bonds

The chemistry of compounds with gold-germanium bonds has developed considerably since Schmidbaur and coworkers reported the first derivatives obtained by the insertion reaction of GeCl2 (as its dioxane complex) into a gold-halogen bond [75]. Both neutral and ionic compounds have been reported and a larger structural diversity in comparison with the silicon analogs has been established (Table 4.4). 

The organometallic compounds prepared from alkali metal derivatives of metal carbonyls include compounds in which a transition metal of a metal carbonyl residue is cr-bonded to another atom such as a carbon atom in an alkyl, acyl, aryl, or perfluoroalkyl group, to the heavier congeners of carbon —silicon, germanium, tin, and lead—to mercury and gold which form unusually stable compounds, and even to other transition metals. The preparation and properties of all of these classes of compounds will be considered and, for the sake of completeness, a few related compounds prepared by routes other than those involving anionic metal carbonyl derivatives will be discussed. 

---