Hafnium complexes carboxylates

Zirconium and hafnium tetraalkoxides are highly reactive compounds. They react with water, alcohols, silanols, hydrogen halides, acetyl halides, certain Lewis bases, aryl isocyanates and other metal alkoxides. With chelating hydroxylic compounds HL, such as j8-diketones, carboxylic acids and Schiff bases, they give complexes of the type ML (OR)4 these reactions are discussed in the sections dealing with the chelating ligand. 

Esterification of carboxylic acids with alcohols, including bulky secondary ones, by equimolar di-2-thienyl carbonate (2-DTC) in the presence of a catalytic amount of 4-(dimethylamino)pyridine in toluene solvent at room temperature followed by addition of a catalytic amount of hafnium(IV) trifluoromethanesulfonate, Hf(OTf)4, afforded the corresponding esters in good to high yields. In step 1 (Scheme 1), interaction of the acid and 2-DTC (1) produces the thienyl ester (2) with evolution of CO2 and formation of 2(5H)-thiophenone (3). In step 2, the added Hf(OTf)4 forms with (2) an activated complex (4), alcoholysis of which yields the ester (5) and a further molecule of 2(5H)-thiophenone.1 The procedure was also effective for converting [Pg.48]

The coordination and organometallic chemistry of zirconium and hafnium are surveyed for the year 1991.107,108 There is useful material in a review of homogeneous Group 4 metallocene Ziegler-Natta catalysts, a review of the coordination chemistry of cyclopentadienyl titanium carboxylate and related complexes O and a review of bis(cycIopentadienyl)zirconium(IV) or hafnium(IV) complexes with Si-, Ge-, Sn-, N-, P-, As-, Sb-, 0-, S-, Se-, Te- or transition metal-centred anionic ligands. Cationic zirconocene or hafiiocene complexes serve as Lewis acids with unique reactivities, they are active for C-F bond activation, coordinative activation of ether linkages, carbonyl activation and C-O bond cleavage. New synthetic methods based on the... 

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