Nickel complexes other ligands

Virtually all work on nickel isocyanide complexes centers on nickel(O) species. Malatesta and Bonati 90) describe complexes of the formula NiL4 and Ni(CO) L4 jj. The former are formed in a variety of reactions, including reductions of nickel(II) in the presence of isocyanides, and by the replacement of other ligands by isocyanides. The latter are, of course, derivatives of Ni(CO)4. In addition, a few ill-defined nickel(II) complexes are reported, as is the formally nickel(I) species (C5H5NiCNC6Hj)2. 

Among transition metal complexes used as catalysts for reactions of the above-mentioned types b and c, the most versatile are nickel complexes. The characteristic reactions of butadiene catalyzed by nickel complexes are cyclizations. Formations of 1,5-cyclooctadiene (COD) (1) and 1,5,9-cyclododecatriene (CDT) (2) are typical reactions (2-9). In addition, other cyclic compounds (3-6) shown below are formed by nickel catalysts. Considerable selectivity to form one of these cyclic oligomers as a main product by modification of the catalytic species with different phosphine or phosphite as ligands has been observed (3, 4). 

The purpose of this review is to provide the reader with a scenario of what can be accomplished with nickel complexes. It is useful to do this via a series of broad schemes, hypothetical in some cases, which show the main reaction patterns, without considering mechanistic details. Examples will illustrate the various processes, but extension to other substrates or to different conditions often requires use of alternative ligands or solvents, or a change from a neutral complex to a cationic or anionic species, as indicated above. For references to syntheses with nickel see Baker et al. (10). For criteria for the synthesis of coordination compounds and stability of organotransition metal complexes in general, see references (11. 12). Organometallic literature has been collected periodically by Bruce (13). 

In the case of phosphine, especially tri-n-butyl and triphenyl phosphines, an active phosphine complex is formed in the reaction medium via reaction with nickel carbonyl. This complex is a very active species provided that the optimum concentration of phosphine is used. Low phosphine concentration results in a loss of the effective nickel concentration through the formation of nickel tetra-carbonyl, nickel metal or nickel iodide. The absolute concentration of phosphine is less important than the P/Ni ratio. In addition to form the stable Ni-P catalyst, the phosphine has to compete with other ligands in the reaction mixture for nickel. With high carbon monoxide partial pressure, there is more CO in solution to compete with phosphine favoring the formation of the carbonyl, which is inactive under the reaction conditions. Hence with high carbon mon-... 

Dale Margerum Ralph Wilkins has mentioned the interesting effect of terpyridine on the subsequent substitution reaction of the nickel complex. I would like to discuss this point—namely the effect of coordination of other ligands on the rate of substitution of the remaining coordinated water. However, before proceeding we should first focus attention on the main point of this paper-which is that a tremendous amount of kinetic data for the rate of formation of all kinds of metal complexes can be correlated with the rate of water substitution of the simple aquo metal ion. This also means that dissociation rate constants of metal complexes can be predicted from the stability constants of the complexes and the rate constant of water exchange. The data from the paper are so convincing that we can proceed to other points of discussion. 

When the apparently penta-coordinated diarsine complexes just described are dissolved in solvents more polar than nitrobenzene, they tend to dissociate into halide ions and bivalent cations, thus becoming 2 1 electrolytes (119). The effect is most marked with the platinum compounds. It has been shown that solvation effects might be less with platinum than with palladium, and so, other things in the equilibria being equal, it can also be concluded that the bonding of further ligands by a square-planar complex is much weaker with platinum than with palladium. Square-planar nickel complexes are of course the most ready to take up further ligands. 

Trifluorophosphine is a very convenient ligand in metal atom chemistry to use along with other ligands, e.g., in the stabilization of metal arene complexes (Section III,B). Reaction of a mixture of PF3 and PH3 with nickel vapor yields Ni(PF3)3PH3 and Ni(PF3)2(PH3)2 but no Ni(PH3)4. Attempts to make Ni(PH3)4 lead to hydrogen evolution from the ligand during or after condensation with the nickel vapor (128). 

Reactions of cobalt and nickel atoms with toluene and other arenes yield condensates in which the metal is in a very reactive state (105). However, none of the products of reaction of these condensates with other ligands has contained the arene coordinated to the metal. It seems possible that the condensates contain ditoluenecobalt and ditoluene-nickel, but in these complexes (unlike the chromium or iron complexes) the two arene rings are probably not symmetrically bonded to the metals. 

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