Tetrahedral hydrides

The element before carbon in Period 2, boron, has one electron less than carbon, and forms many covalent compounds of type BX3 where X is a monovalent atom or group. In these, the boron uses three sp hybrid orbitals to form three trigonal planar bonds, like carbon in ethene, but the unhybridised 2p orbital is vacant, i.e. it contains no electrons. In the nitrogen atom (one more electron than carbon) one orbital must contain two electrons—the lone pair hence sp hybridisation will give four tetrahedral orbitals, one containing this lone pair. Oxygen similarly hybridised will have two orbitals occupied by lone pairs, and fluorine, three. Hence the hydrides of the elements from carbon to fluorine have the structures... 

Because they possess an odd number of valence electrons the elements of this group can only satisfy the 18-electron rule in their carbonyls if M-M bonds are present. In accord with this, mononuclear carbonyls are not formed. Instead [M2(CO)s], [M4(CO)i2] and [M6(CO)i6] are the principal binary carbonyls of these elements. But reduction of [Co2(CO)g] with, for instance, sodium amalgam in benzene yields the monomeric and tetrahedral, 18-electron ion, [Co(CO)4] , acidification of which gives the pale yellow hydride, [HCo(CO)4]. Reductions employing Na metal in liquid NH3 yield the super-reduced [M(CO)3] (M = Co, Rh, Ir) containing these elements in their lowest formal oxidation state. 

Formation of an Alcohol The simplest reaction of a tetrahedral alkoxide intermediate is protonation to yield an alcohol. We ve already seen two examples of this kind of process during reduction of aldehydes and ketones with hydride reagents such as NaBH4 and LiAlH4 (Section 17.4) and during Grignard reactions (Section 17.5). During a reduction, the nucleophile that adds to the carbonyl... 

Formation of C—Nu The second mode of nucleophilic addition, which often occurs with amine nucleophiles, involves elimination of oxygen and formation of a C=Nu bond. For example, aldehydes and ketones react with primary amines, RNH2, to form imines, R2C=NR. These reactions proceed through exactly the same kind of tetrahedral intermediate as that formed during hydride reduction and Grignard reaction, but the initially formed alkoxide ion is not isolated. Instead, it is protonated and then loses water to form an imine, as shown in Figure 3. 

The Cannizzaro reaction takes place by nucleophilic addition of OH- to an aldehyde to give a tetrahedral intermediate, which expels hydride ion as a leaving group and is thereby oxidized. A second aldehyde molecule accepts the hydride ion in another nucleophilic addition step and is thereby reduced. Benzaldehyde, for instance, yields benzyl alcohol plus benzoic acid when heated with aqueous NaOH. 

Conversion of Acid Chlorides into Alcohols Reduction Acid chlorides are reduced by LiAJH4 to yield primary alcohols. The reaction is of little practical value, however, because the parent carboxylic acids are generally more readily available and can themselves be reduced by L1AIH4 to yield alcohols. Reduction occurs via a typical nucleophilic acyl substitution mechanism in which a hydride ion (H -) adds to the carbonyl group, yielding a tetrahedral intermediate that expels Cl-. The net effect is a substitution of -Cl by -H to yield an aldehyde, which is then immediately reduced by UAIH4 in a second step to yield the primary alcohol. 

According to the VSEPR model developed in Chapter 9, an inner atom with a steric number of 4 adopts tetrahedral electron group geometry. This tetrahedral arrangement of four electron groups is very common, the only important exceptions being the hydrides of elements beyond the second row, such as H2 S and PH3. Thus,... 

The typical structure for the composition MH2 is a cubic closest-packing of metal atoms in which all tetrahedral interstices are occupied by H atoms this is the CaF2 type. The surplus hydrogen in the lanthanoid hydrides MH2 to MH3 is placed in the octahedral interstices (Li3Bi type for LaH3 to NdH3, cf. Fig. 15.3, p. 161). 

Reactions of the tetrahedral Ni° complex (994) have already been discussed in Section 6.3.5.4.2397 A nickel carbonyl cation (1062) containing a cyclophosphenium ligand has been assembled through a hydride abstraction reaction according to Equation (37).2552... 

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