Metal Vapour Synthesis of an Organometallic Barium(0) Synthon.

A hydrocarbon-soluble barium anthracene complex was prepared by means of metal vapour synthesis. Reaction of 9,10-bis(trimethylsilyl)anthracene (Anth'') with barium vapour gave deep purple Ba(Anth'') which after extraction with diethyl ether crystallised as the cyclic octamer [Ba(Anth'')⋅Et2 O]8 . Dissolution in benzene or toluene led to replacement of the Et2 O ligand with a softer arene ligand and isolation of Ba(Anth'')⋅arene. Diffusion ordered spectroscopy (DOSY NMR ) measurements in benzene-d6 indicate solution species with a molecular weight that equals a trimeric constitution. Natural population analysis (NPA) assigned charges of +1.70 and -1.70 to Ba and Anth'', respectively, relating to highly ionic Ba2+ /Anth''2- bonding. Preliminary reactivity studies with air, Ph2 C=NPh, or H2 show that the complex reacts as a Ba0 synthon by release of neutral Anth''. This soluble molecular Ba0 /BaII redox synthon provides new routes for the syntheses of barium complexes under mild conditions.

Teaming up main group metals with metallic iron to boost hydrogenation catalysis.

Hydrogenation of unsaturated bonds is a key step in both the fine and petrochemical industries. Homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts are historically based on noble group 9 and 10 metals. Increasing awareness of sustainability drives the replacement of costly, and often harmful, precious metals by abundant 3d-metals or even main group metals. Although not as efficient as noble transition metals, metallic barium was recently found to be a versatile hydrogenation catalyst. Here we show that addition of finely divided Fe0, which itself is a poor hydrogenation catalyst, boosts activities of Ba0 by several orders of magnitude, enabling rapid hydrogenation of alkynes, imines, challenging multi-substituted alkenes and non-activated arenes. Metallic Fe0 also boosts the activity of soluble early main group metal hydride catalysts, or precursors thereto. This synergy originates from cooperativity between a homogeneous, highly reactive, polar main group metal hydride complex and a heterogeneous Fe0 surface that is responsible for substrate activation.

Metallic Barium: A Versatile and Efficient Hydrogenation Catalyst.

Ba metal was activated by evaporation and cocondensation with heptane. This black powder is a highly active hydrogenation catalyst for the reduction of a variety of unactivated (non-conjugated) mono-, di- and tri-substituted alkenes, tetraphenylethylene, benzene, a number of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, aldimines, ketimines and various pyridines. The performance of metallic Ba in hydrogenation catalysis tops that of the hitherto most active molecular group 2 metal catalysts. Depending on the substrate, two different catalytic cycles are proposed. A: a classical metal hydride cycle and B: the Ba metal cycle. The latter is proposed for substrates that are easily reduced by Ba0 , that is, conjugated alkenes, alkynes, annulated rings, imines and pyridines. In addition, a mechanism in which Ba0 and BaH2 are both essential is discussed. DFT calculations on benzene hydrogenation with a simple model system (Ba/BaH2 ) confirm that the presence of metallic Ba has an accelerating effect.

Optically active tetra-tert-butyl-P(5)-deltacyclene epimers: preparation, spectroscopy, dynamic equilibriums, H/D exchange, and transition-metal complex chemistry.

On the basis of isolated diastereomeric triorganylstannyl-P5 -deltacyclenes 7' and 7'', almost pure enantiomers of their destannylation products 8' and 8'' are now available. These stereochemically inert cage chiral species contain a configurationally labile P1H1 group that defines two epimers 8 a and 8 b of each of the enantiomers, which are connected by a rapid equilibrium. Mirror-symmetric circular dichroism (CD) spectra of the enantiomeric cages are compatible with the identification of epimers. A simulation of the CD spectrum of the major epimer 8'a relates the cage chirality of the system to the observed chiroptical effects. Both cage epimers and two of the phosphorus cage atoms are active as ligands with respect to [M(CO)5 ] fragments of Cr, Mo, and W. Four almost isoenergetic regio- and stereoisomers of the resulting mononuclear complexes are formed for these metals, but only one of the isomers per metal crystallized in the case of the racemic series of the complexes. The enantiopure versions of cages and cage complexes, however, did not crystallize at all, a well-known phenomenon for chiral compounds. CD spectra of the optically active complex isomer mixtures are close to identical with the CD spectra of the related free cages and point again to the chiral cages as the dominant source of the CD effects of the complexes. [(Benzene)RuCl2 ] complexes of the cage ligand 8 behave totally differently. Only a single species 12=[(benzene)RuCl2 ⋅8 b] is formed in almost quantitative yield and the minor epimer 8 b plays the role of the ligand exclusively. The reaction works as well for the separated enantiomeric cage versions to yield the highly enriched enantiomers 12' and 12'' separately. An efficient kinetic resolution process was identified as the main reason for this finding. It is based on a high stereo- and regiochemical flexibility of the PC cage ligand that is capable of adjusting to the specific requirements of a suitable transition-metal complex fragment. Such ligand flexibility is regularly observed in metalloenzymes, but is a very rare case in classical and organometallic complex chemistry.

The complexed 1,3-diphospha-2-arsaallyl radical and its cationic and anionic derivatives.

Photolysis of [Cp*As{W(CO)(5)}(2)] (1a) in the presence of Mes*P=PMes* (Mes*=2,4,6-tri-tert-butylphenyl) leads to the novel 1,3-diphospha-2-arsaallyl radical [(CO)(5)W(mu,eta(2):eta(1)-P(2)AsMes*(2))W(CO)(4)] (2a). The frontier orbitals of the radical 2a are indicative of a stable pi-allylic system that is only marginally influenced by the d orbitals of the two tungsten atoms. The SOMO and the corresponding spin density distribution of the radical 2a show that the unpaired electron is preferentially located at the two equivalent terminal phosphorus atoms, which has been confirmed by EPR spectroscopy. The protonated derivative of 2a, the complex [(CO)(5)W(mu,eta(2):eta(1)-P(2)As(H)Mes*(2))W(CO)(4)] (6a) is formed during chromatographic workup, whereas the additional products [Mes*P=PMes*{W(CO)(5)}] as the Z-isomer (3) and the E-isomer (4), and [As(2){W(CO)(5)}(3)] (5) are produced as a result of a decomposition reaction of radical 2a. Reduction of radical 2a yields the stable anion [(CO)(5)W(mu,eta(2):eta(1)-P(2)AsMes*(2))W(CO)(4)](-) in 7a, whereas upon oxidation the corresponding cationic complex [(CO)(5)W(mu,eta(2):eta(1)-P(2)AsMes*(2))W(CO)(4)][SbF(6)] (8a) is formed, which is only stable at low temperatures in solution. Compounds 2a, 7a, and 8a represent the hitherto elusive complexed redox congeners of the diphospha-arsa-allyl system. The analogous oxidation of the triphosphaallyl radical [(CO)(5)W(mu,eta(2):eta(1)- P(3)Mes*(2))W(CO)(4)] (2b) also leads to an allyl cation, which decomposes under CH activation to the phosphine derivative [(CO)(5)W{mu,eta(2):eta(1)-P(3)(Mes*)(C(5)H(2)tBu(2)C(CH(3))(2)CH(2))}W(CO)(4)] (9), in which a CH bond of a methyl group of the Mes* substituent has been activated. All new products have been characterized by NMR spectrometry and IR spectroscopy, and compounds 2a, 3, 6a, 7a, and 9 by X-ray diffraction analysis.

Towards spontaneous heterolysis of the homonuclear P-P bond in diphosphines: the case of diazaphospholeniumtriphospholides.

Computational studies on a series of polyphospholyl-substituted N-heterocyclic phosphines (CH)(2)(NR)(2) P-P(n)(CH)(5-n) (R=Me, n=1-5) disclosed that increasing formal replacement of CH units in the phosphole ring by phosphorus atoms is associated with an increase in P-P distances and charge separation, and a decrease in covalent bond orders. Altogether, these trends imply that the CH versus P substitution enhances ionic P-P bond polarization in these compounds. Experimental verification of this hypothesis was obtained for the triphospholyl diazaphospholenes (CR)(2)(NR')(2)P-P(3)(CtBu)(2) (8a: R=H, R'=tBu; 8b: R=Me, R'=Mesityl [Mes]), which were prepared through metathesis reactions from suitable precursors and identified by solution and solid-state NMR data and a single-crystal X-ray diffraction study of 8a. Analysis of J(PP) coupling patterns suggested that both species are characterized by the absence of a strong covalent P-P bond connecting both rings. This interpretation was confirmed by the finding of a unique P-P distance of 2.79 A for crystalline 8 a, and further supported by computational studies, which led to the conclusion that both species are better described as diazaphospholenium-triphospholide contact ion pairs rather than covalent molecules. Variable-temperature (VT) NMR spectra of 8b showed a collapse of J(PP) couplings between atoms in different rings, which indicates scrambling of the diazaphospholenium and triphospholide units between different molecules in solution, and further substantiates the proposed view on the molecular structure.

Cage chirality of P-C cage compounds: highly diastereoselective formation of diastereomeric P5-deltacyclenes, separation of diastereomers, and removal of the chiral auxiliary.

An effective cyclic addition reaction of diastereomeric (R*)diphenyltin-3,5-di(tert-butyl)-1,2,4-triphosphole derivatives 6 a-c (R* = (-)-cis-myrtanyl (a), (-)-trans-myrtanyl (b), m-(2-bornyl-2-ene)phenyl (c) with two equivalents of tert-butylphosphaalkyne 1 leads to 1:1 mixtures of diastereomeric stannylated pentaphosphadeltacyclene derivatives 7 a-c with seven stereogenic centers in the cage unit. The (-)-cis-myrtanyl derivative 7 a could be separated into its diastereomers; destannylation of diastereomer 7 a(RR) led to the P-H cage 8 as a pure enantiomer. Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy of the pure diastereomer 7 a(RR) and the enantiomer 8 give evidence for identical stereoisomers of the P(5)-deltacyclene cage units and prove a strong dominance of the chiral cages over the chiral auxiliary groups with respect to their chiroptical properties. Absolute X-ray structure investigations of the majority of the compounds presented in the paper reveal the details of the stereochemistry of the asymmetric P-C cage units. In this paper we demonstrated for the first time a general preparative route to stereochemically fully defined asymmetric P-C cage compounds by separation of diastereomers and replacement of the chiral auxiliary group.

Hexaphosphapentaprismane: a new gateway to organophosphorus cage compound chemistry.

Several independent synthetic routes are described leading to the formation of a novel unsaturated tetracyclic phosphorus carbon cage compound tBu4C4P6 (1), which undergoes a light-induced valence isomerization to produce the first hexaphosphapentaprismane cage tBu4C4P6 (2). A second unsaturated isomer tBu4C4P6 (9) of 1 and the bis-[W(CO)5] complex 13 of 1 are stable towards similar isomerization reactions. Another starting material for the synthesis of the hexaphosphapentaprismane cage tBu4C4P6 (2) is the trimeric mercury complex [(tBu4C4P6)Hg]3 (11), which undergoes elimination of mercury to afford the title compound 2. Single-crystal X-ray structural determinations have been carried out on compounds 1, 2, 9, 11, and 13.