Tetrahydrothiophen complex

The two tetrahydrothiophen complexes above are isostructural [118]. Cationic complexes can be made... 

The soft Au+ forms relatively few complexes compared with those of phosphines. Complexes with ammines, nitriles and diazoles like Au(NH3)2 and Au(RCN)2 are known but little studied. In linear Au(NH3)2, Au-N is 2.01-2.03 A [70a], [Au(NCPh)2]+ has been used as a labile source of other gold complexes [70b]. AuCl(piperidine) is a monomer with weak tetra-meric association in contrast AuX(py) (X = Cl, Br, I) are [Aupy2]+[AuX2] with a chain structure in the solid state (and Au-Au interactions), suggesting a close balance between factors for molecular and ionic structures [70c] (note also the tetrahydrothiophene complexes in section 4.10.6). 

These short Au-Au contacts may be compared with distances of 2.88 A in metallic gold and 2.60 A in gaseous Au2. The term aurophilicity has been coined by H. Schmidbaur to describe the phenomenon [189,194], The interactions can occur as pairs, squares, linear chains or two-dimensional arrays of gold centres. Examples include the association between dimer units in the dithiocarbamates Au(dtc)2 (Figure 4.16) and the ionic tetrahydrothiophen complexes Au(tht)2 AuXJ (X = halogen), where cations and anions stack with Au—Au 2.97-2.98 A (X = I). The interaction is such that Au(S203)2 pair up, despite their charge, with Au-Au 3.24 A in the sodium salt. Likewise in Aupy AuCl, cations pair up at 3.42 A apart [10, 195]. 

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