Oxidative addition, metal atom-organic complexes

The ability of transition metals to bind and activate organic molecules, and to release the transformed organic product with turnover, forms the basis of the vast catalytic chemistry of transition metal complexes. In addition, metal atoms play a key role at the catalytic center of many enzymes. For example, metalloenzymes play key roles in hydrolysis, oxidation, reduction, electron-transfer chemistry, and many other remarkable processes such as nitrogen fixation. The long-term development of synthetic polymers that perform catalytic chemistry in a manner analogous to enzymes, is a goal of profound interest. 

Intermolecular oxygen atom transfer from a metal complex to an organic substrate is an archetypical reaction step in oxidation catalysis. As the transformation of O2 into metal 0x0 groups by oxidative addition is a well-precedented process (Sect. 2.2), its combination with transfer of the oxygen atom to an oxidizable substrate ( S ) constitutes a catalytic cycle for aerobic oxidations (Eq. 21). Examples of such cycles exist in organometallic chemistry, by virtue of 0x0 complexes with carbon-based ancillary hgands. 

Abstraction, reductive coupling, electron transfer, bond activation, oxidative addition, n-complexation, disproportionation and metal cluster formation are some of the reactions that occur when metal atoms interact with organic polymers and small molecules. Examples of these reactions are provided from the literature on the organometallic chemistry of free atoms and coordination-deficient molecules. Past uses of model compound studies to understand the early stages of chromium metallization on polyimide are critiqued. New evidence for reactions of chromium atoms with compounds related to polyimides is given. 

For the lanthanide metals, Sm, Eu, and Yb, which have a readily accessible ( + 2) oxidation state, oxidative addition reactions of M(1I) complexes with halogens and organic halides are dominated by the atom transfer or free radical mechanism (cf. 5.S.2.9.1.) in which two metal ions are each oxidized to the -I- 3 state. Numerous examples illustrate the ability of cyclopentadienyl or indenyl Ln(II) complexes (Ln = Sm, Eu, Yb) to abstract halogen atoms from molecular halogens ", halogenated solvents sueh as CH2CI2 and and alkyl halides . An archetypieal example is ... 

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