Thiolate main group complexes

Four oxidation states of palladium are encountered in organometallic chemistry see Palladium Inorganic Coordination Chemistry) In order of importance, they are Pd , Pd , Pd, and Pd . With the reduction of palladium from Pd to Pd , the metal changes its reactivity from electrophile to nucleophile. However, unlike main group nucleophiles such as thiolates or cyanide, Pd complexes react with both alkyl halides and aryl or vinyl halides. Reactions of Pd complexes with these latter sp halides generate new Pd aryl or vinyl bonds through the process of oxidative addition. 

These are formed mainly between metal atoms in d3-cP dinuclear complexes for which perhaps the most important group comprises the ethane-like X3M=MX3 (Dm) compounds, where X = alkyl, amide, alkoxide, thiolate, selenate, and mixtures thereof.115 The synthetic entry into these compounds involves principally the reactions of M2(NMe2)6, as shown in Fig. 18-C-20, and these in turn are made by metathetic reactions involving either MoC13 or WCL, and LiNMe2. 

The concentration of zinc accelerator-thiolate complexes in the rubber is not the only factor determining the balance of the two reactions in NR. Both the rate of desulfuration of polysulfide crosslinks and the rate of their thermal decomposition depend upon the positions of attachment of the sulfur chains to the backbone rubber chains and the detailed structure of the hydrocarbon at the ends of the crosslinks. In the course of normal accelerated vulcanization there are three different positions of attack on the polyisoprene backbone two of these are methylene groups in the main chain (labelled d and a in 3), and the third is the side chain methyl group (labelled b in 3). Direct analysis of the distribution of the sites of attack cannot yet be made on actual rubber vulcanizates, and information has had to be obtained solely by sulfuration of the model alkene 2-methyl-2-pentene and, more recently, 2,6-dimethyl-2,6-octadiene. The former (4) models the a-methylic site but only one of the two a-methylenic sites of polyisoprene the latter (5) models all three sites, but at the present time these are not all supported by the synthesis of relevant sulfides. Because allylic rearrangements are common in subsequent reactions of the sulfurated rubber, sulfur substituents appear not only on allylic carbon atoms but on isoallylic carbon atoms. Thus, from 2-methyl-2-pentene, the groups shown in Scheme 2 are formed. 

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