Transition metal complexes with weakly

Solvated transition metal cations containing weakly bonded organic ligands are potentially useful as intermediates in preparative coordination chemistry. The coordinated solvent molecules provide solubility of the compounds in various organic solvents, and they can be replaced readily by other ligands with better donor properties.1, 2 The preparation of mononuclear transition metal complexes with weakly bonded anions has been described previously3 and preparative applications of such complexes have been reviewed.4... 

Transition metal complexes with weakly bonded anions, 26 92 Transition metal polyoxo anions, 27 71 Tributylammonium pentatungsto-bis(phenylphosphonate)(4 -), [[(C,H,),NH],[W,O,(QH,PO0 l], 27 127... 

Besides transition metal complexes with weakly coordinating cteo-borate anions, metallacarboranes in which metal atom incorporated into carborane cage are of great interest... 

A number of transition metal complexes containing weakly basic (5-member ring) HDN-related ligands are known. The authenticated bonding modes of pyrrole (Pyr) and pyrrolyl ions (Pyl) -or their alkylated analogues- in mononuclear metal complexes are summarized in Fig. 6.1. Pyrrole is a 5-member aromatic heterocycle in which the lone pair is delocalized over the n system of the ring, and it is therefore an electron rich molecule that reacts readily with electrophiles but is not susceptible to nucleophilic attack. 

The self-association of planar d transition-metal complexes with the formation of weak metal-metal bonds is prominently featured for Rh. Discrete oligomers to infinite stacks have been isolated in the solid state. As discussed in the following sections, the stability of these ID Rh chain molecules has been attributed to weak metal-metal interactions. Vacancy in the Rh d-band results mixed-valent chain compound of rhodium. The ligand-ligand interactions have been invoked to rationalize the stability of chain compounds as well. 

DFT calculations offer a good compromise between speed and accuracy. They are well suited for problem molecules such as transition metal complexes. This feature has revolutionized computational inorganic chemistry. DFT often underestimates activation energies and many functionals reproduce hydrogen bonds poorly. Weak van der Waals interactions (dispersion) are not reproduced by DFT a weakness that is shared with current semi-empirical MO techniques. 

The electronic structure of transition metal cluster complexes with weak- and strong-field ligands. G. P. Kostikova and D. V. Korol kov, Russ. Chem. Rev. (Engl. Transl.), 1985,54, 344 (137). 

Experimentally, spin-allowed d-d bands (we use the quotation marks again) are observed with intensities perhaps 100 times larger than spin-forbidden ones but still a few orders of magnitude (say, two) less intense than fully allowed transitions. This weakness of the d-d bands, alluded to in Chapter 2, is a most important pointer to the character of the d orbitals in transition-metal complexes. It directly implies that the admixture between d and p metal functions is small. Now a ligand function can be expressed as a sum of metal-centred orbitals also (see Box 4-1). The weakness of the d-d bands also implies that that portion of any ligand function which looks like a p orbital when expanded onto the metal is small also. Overall, therefore, the great extent to which d-d bands do satisfy Laporte s rule entirely supports our proposition in Chapter 2 that the d orbitals in Werner-type complexes are relatively well isolated (or decoupled or unmixed) from the valence shell of s and/or p functions. 

The concept makes use of the complimentary strengths and weaknesses of the two unconventional media. While ionic liquids are known to be excellent solvents for many transition metal catalysts, the solubility of most transition metal complexes in scC02 is poor (if not modified with e. g. phosphine ligands with fluorous "ponytails" [64]). However, product isolation from scC02 is always very simple, while from an ionic catalyst solution it may become more and more complicated depending on the solubility of the product in the ionic liquid and on the product s boiling point. 

However, the practical, direct synthesis of functionalized linear polyolefins via coordination copolymerization olefins with polar monomers (CH2 = CHX) remains a challenging and industrially important goal. In the mid-1990s Brookhart et al. [25, 27] reported that cationic (a-diimine)palladium complexes with weakly coordinating anions catalyze the copolymerization of ethylene with alkylacrylates to afford hyperbranched copolymers with the acrylate functions located almost exclusively at the chain ends, via a chain-walking mechanism that has been meticulously studied and elucidated by Brookhart and his collaborators at DuPont [25, 27], Indeed, this seminal work demonstrated for the first time that the insertion of acrylate monomers into certain late transition metal alkyl species is a surprisingly facile process. It spawned almost a decade of intense research by several groups to understand and advance this new science and to attempt to exploit it commercially [30-33, 61]. 

Transition metal complexes which react with diazoalkanes to yield carbene complexes can be catalysts for diazodecomposition (see Section 4.1). In addition to the requirements mentioned above (free coordination site, electrophi-licity), transition metal complexes can catalyze the decomposition of diazoalkanes if the corresponding carbene complexes are capable of transferring the carbene fragment to a substrate with simultaneous regeneration of the original complex. Metal carbonyls of chromium, iron, cobalt, nickel, molybdenum, and tungsten all catalyze the decomposition of diazomethane [493]. Other related catalysts are (CO)5W=C(OMe)Ph [509], [Cp(CO)2Fe(THF)][BF4] [510,511], and (CO)5Cr(COD) [52,512]. These compounds are sufficiently electrophilic to catalyze the decomposition of weakly nucleophilic, acceptor-substituted diazoalkanes. 

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