Organometallic Chemistry of the Lanthanides

Compounds of these metals involving either a- or tt-bonds to carbon are generally much more reactive to both air and water than those of the d-block metals. Thus there is no lanthanide equivalent of ferrocene, an unreactive air- and heat-stable compound. They are often thermally stable to 100 °C or more, but are usually decomposed immediately by air (and are not infrequently pyrophoric). Within these limitations, lanthanide organometallic compounds have their own special features, often linked with the large size of these metals. 

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The organometallic chemistry of the lanthanides is predominantly, though not exclusively, that of cydopentadienyl and substituted cydopentadienyl compounds. 

It should be noted that there are organometallic compounds involving polyhapto ligands that contain linkages such as Sc— Te that are not found in coordination compounds. In addition, a number of recent reviews on the organometallic chemistry of the lanthanides include reference to scandium compounds. ... 

Reduction of dinitrogen molecule by divalent lanthanide complexes has been a popular subject in coordination and organometallic chemistry of the lanthanide elements. In the course of these studies, a large number of polynuclear lanthanide clusters featuring a core of lanthanide atoms organized around a dinitrogen unit have been obtained and structurally characterized. 

All the aforementioned information has to be rationalized. A fundamental approach on organometallic chemistry of the lanthanides could give, in our opinion, the expected answer. 

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