Rhodium complexes, ligand substitution reactions

As already mentioned, complexes of chromium(iii), cobalt(iii), rhodium(iii) and iridium(iii) are particularly inert, with substitution reactions often taking many hours or days under relatively forcing conditions. The majority of kinetic studies on the reactions of transition-metal complexes have been performed on complexes of these metal ions. This is for two reasons. Firstly, the rates of reactions are comparable to those in organic chemistry, and the techniques which have been developed for the investigation of such reactions are readily available and appropriate. The time scales of minutes to days are compatible with relatively slow spectroscopic techniques. The second reason is associated with the kinetic inertness of the products. If the products are non-labile, valuable stereochemical information about the course of the substitution reaction may be obtained. Much is known about the stereochemistry of ligand substitution reactions of cobalt(iii) complexes, from which certain inferences about the nature of the intermediates or transition states involved may be drawn. This is also the case for substitution reactions of square-planar complexes of platinum(ii), where study has led to the development of rules to predict the stereochemical course of reactions at this centre. 

Support-bound transition metal complexes have mainly been prepared as insoluble catalysts. Table 4.1 lists representative examples of such polymer-bound complexes. Polystyrene-bound molybdenum carbonyl complexes have been prepared for the study of ligand substitution reactions and oxidative eliminations [51], Moreover, well-defined molybdenum, rhodium, and iridium phosphine complexes have been prepared on copolymers of PEG and silica [52]. Several reviews have covered the preparation and application of support-bound reagents, including transition metal complexes [53-59]. Examples of the preparation and uses of organomercury and organo-zinc compounds are discussed in Section 4.1. 

Figure 3.76 Ligand substitution reactions on a rhodium (I) carbene complex with an ester functionalised carbene ligand.

Though thermally stable, rhodium ammines are light sensitive and irradiation of such a complex at the frequency of a ligand-field absorption band causes substitution reactions to occur (Figure 2.47) [97]. The charge-transfer transitions occur at much higher energy, so that redox reactions do not compete. 

One of the commonest reactions in the chemistry of transition-metal complexes is the replacement of one ligand by another ligand (Fig. 9-3) - a so-called substitution reaction. These reactions proceed at a variety of rates, the half-lives of which may vary from several days for complexes of rhodium(iii) or cobalt(m) to about a microsecond with complexes of titanium(iii). 

It will not have escaped the reader s attention that the kinetically inert complexes are those of (chromium(iii)) or low-spin d (cobalt(iii), rhodium(iii) or iridium(iii)). Attempts to rationalize this have been made in terms of ligand-field effects, as we now discuss. Note, however, that remarkably little is known about the nature of the transition state for most substitution reactions. Fortunately, the outcome of the approach we summarize is unchanged whether the mechanism is associative or dissociative. 

The interesting complex chemistry of rhodium has been rather neglected this is probably because most of the synthetic methods for obtaining complexes have been tedious. In general, substitutions of chlorine atoms bonded to rhodium by other ligands are slow, and products have usually been mixtures. The situation is now changing, since novel catalytic approaches to rhodium complexes have been developed.1 The catalysis in the present synthesis involves the rapid further reaction of the hydrido complex formed from l,2,6-trichIorotri(pyridine)rho-dium(III) in the presence of hypophosphite ion. 

Squai e-planar rhodium I) complexes, phosphorus-nitrogen donor ligands, 44 295 Square-planar substitution reactions, 34 219-221... 

A few experiments have been performed to evaluate the potential of the P-menthyl-substituted class of phosphe-tanes 76 in rhodium-mediated alkene-hydrogenation reactions <1998S1539>. Within this series, monodentate ligands show low catalytic activity and poor enantioselectivity when employed in the hydrogenation of model dehydroamino acid derivatives. This observation is clearly consistent with the observed lability of their rhodium complexes, due to steric hindrance. 

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