Square planar metal complexes substitution

Transition metal square-planar complexes generally contain eight d electrons and are almost always diamagnetic. This includes complexes of Pt, Pd % Au, Rh, and Ir. While such complexes can imdergo other reactions such as redox processes, we shall focus on substitution reactions. Good reviews of square-planar substitution reactions are available. The following is a summary of some of these substitution processes, wifli emphasis on those involved with polymer formation. These substitution reactions are the most widely studied of the transition metal square-planar complex reactions. 

The effect of the central metal ion on the rates of square-planar substitutions can be very strong. Hence, the tendency to undergo substitution is in the same order as the tendency to form pentacoordinate complexes Ni > Pd" Pt". Thus, the substitution rates of chlorine by pyridine in EtOH depend on the metal, as follows ... 

For many species the effective atomic number (FAN) or 18- electron rule is helpful. Low spin transition-metal complexes having the FAN of the next noble gas (Table 5), which have 18 valence electrons, are usually inert, and normally react by dissociation. Fach normal donor is considered to contribute two electrons the remainder are metal valence electrons. Sixteen-electron complexes are often inert, if these are low spin and square-planar, but can undergo associative substitution and oxidative-addition 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. 

The unfused cyclobutadiene system is stable in complexes with metals (see Chapter 3), but in these cases electron density is withdrawn from the ring by the metal and there is no aromatic quartet. In fact, these cyclobutadiene-metal complexes can be looked upon as systems containing an aromatic duet. The ring is square planar, the compounds undergo aromatic substitution, and NMR spectra of monosubstituted derivatives show that the C-2 and C-4 protons are equivalent. ... 

Figs. 11 and 12 show typical mo diagrams for square planar and octahedral complexes. Inspection reveals that the metal orbital (z is the axial direction) in a square planar complex is involved in the n bonding system and available for a bonding in the transition state. This is a feature shared by nucleophilic substitution at square planar complexes with the spectacularly associative nucleophilic aromatic substitutions. The octahedral complexes discussed in this chapter... 

The study of rapid, intermolecular ligand exchange between square-planar complexes trans-Ir(CO)L2X (X = C1 or Me, L - PPh3, P(p-tolyl)3, or PMePh2) by variable-temperature 31P NMR spectroscopy indicates that the reaction proceeds through dissociation of phosphine from the metal center and a subsequent associative substitution with other complexes 559,560 Ligand exchange between square-planar Ir and Pt complexes is slow. 

The majority of square planar complexes are those that contain d8 metal ions, of which the most common examples are Ni2+, Pd2+, and Pt2+, although some complexes containing Au3+ have also been studied. As a general trend, the rate of substitution in these complexes is... 

Helmchen and co-worker investigated the use of phosphinooxazolines as ligands for copper(II) catalyzed Diels-Alder reactions (Scheme 19) (214). Optimal selectivities are found for a-naphthyl-substituted phosphinooxazoline (299). These catalysts require 2.5 h to induce complete conversion to cycloadduct, compared to 18 h using the triflate complex 269c under identical conditions. Helmchen invokes a square-planar metal geometry to explain the stereochemistry of the adducts, similar to the model proposed by Evans. He suggests that the bulky phosphine substituents are required to orient binding of the dienophile in such a way as to place the olefin directly below the terf-butyl substituent on the oxazoline. 

Steric hindrance is well known to slow down the rates of ligand substitution reactions in square-planar metal complexes. An example for which steric hindrance controls the aquation rate is complex 9. The effect of 2-picoline on the rate of hydrolysis of CP trans to NH3 (cis to 2-picoline) is dramatic, being about 5 times as slow as the analogous CP ligand in the nonsterically hindered 3-picoline complex (Table I) (44). 

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