4: Fundamentals of Organometallic Chemistry
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- May 3, 2023
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- 4.1: β-Elimination Reactions
- In organic chemistry class, one learns that elimination reactions involve the cleavage of a σ bond and formation of a π bond. A nucleophilic pair of electrons (either from another bond or a lone pair) heads into a new π bond as a leaving group departs. This process is called β-elimination because the bond β to the nucleophilic pair of electrons breaks. Transition metal complexes can participate in their own version of β-elimination, and metal alkyl complexes famously do so.
- 4.2: Associative Ligand Substitution
- Ligand substitution in complexes of this class typically occurs via an associative mechanism, involving approach of the incoming ligand to the complex before departure of the leaving group.
- 4.4: Ligand substitution
- ligand substitution involves the exchange of one ligand for another, with no change in oxidation state at the metal center. The incoming and outgoing ligands may be L- or X-type, but the charge of the complex changes if the ligand type changes. Keep charge conservation in mind when writing out ligand substitutions.
- 4.5: Migratory Insertion- 1,2-Insertions
- Insertions of π systems into M-X bonds establish two new σ bonds in one step, in a stereocontrolled manner. As we saw in the last post, however, we should take care to distinguish these fully intramolecular migratory insertions from intermolecular attack of a nucleophile or electrophile on a coordinated π-system ligand. The reverse reaction of migratory insertion, β-elimination, is not the same as the reverse of nucleophilic or electrophilic attack on a coordinated π system.
- 4.8: Oxidative Addition of Non-polar Reagents
- Page notifications Off Save as PDF Share Table of contents How important are oxidative additions of non-polar reagents? Very. The addition of dihydrogen (H2) is an important step in catalytic hydrogenation reactions. Organometallic C–H activations depend on oxidative additions of C–H bonds. In a fundamental sense, oxidative additions of non-polar organic compounds are commonly used to establish critical metal-carbon bonds.
- 4.10: Quirky Ligand Substitutions
- Over the years, a variety of “quirky” substitution methods have been developed. All of these have the common goal of facilitating substitution in complexes that would otherwise be inert. It’s an age-old challenge: how can we turn a stable complex into something unstable enough to react? Photochemical excitation, oxidation/reduction, and radical chains all do the job, and have all been well studied.
- 4.12: The trans/cis Effects and Influences
- The trans effect proper, which is often called the kinetic trans effect, refers to the observation that certain ligands increase the rate of ligand substitution when positioned trans to the departing ligand. The key word in that last sentence is “rate”—the trans effect proper is a kinetic effect. The trans influence refers to the impact of a ligand on the length of the bond trans to it in the ground state of a complex.
