Organometallic chemistry of Ga+: Formation of an unusual gallium dimer in the coordination sphere of ruthenium

Thomas Cadenbach, Christian Gemel, Timo Bollermann, Israel Fernandez, Gernot Frenking, Roland A. Fischer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

New insights into the distinct organometallic chemistry of the Ga + ion are presented. Ga+ reacts as a strong electrophile with the electron rich ligand trismethylene-methane (C(CH2) 32-) attached at Ru by insertion into a Ru-C bond. The resulting "gallamethylallyl" ligand behaves like strong nucleophile similar to known monovalent GaR species. This donor property leads to the dimeric structure of the product [ (Ru(GaCp*)3- [η3-(CH2)2C{CH2(μ-Ga)}]} 2][(BArF)2] (4) (Cp* = C 5Me5, [BArF] = [B{C6H 3-(CF3)2}4]). Very unexpectedly, the two gallium ligands in this dimer are found in close vicinity to each other with a distance in the range of Ga-Ga bonds. Indeed, AIM calculations confirm a weak attractive closed shell Ga-Ga interaction. Finally, a novel example of a complex with substituent-free Ga+ as a ligand was found in the compound [Ru(PCy3)2(GaCp*)2(Ga)][BAr F] (6) (Cy = C6H11, cyclohexyl), the very short Ru-Ga bond length confirming the assumption that Ga+ represents a pure σ/π-accepting ligand in this case.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)10789-10796
Number of pages8
JournalChemistry - A European Journal
Volume14
Issue number34
DOIs
StatePublished - 26 Nov 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Density functional calculations
  • Gallium
  • Low-valent ion
  • Metal-metal interactions
  • Ruthenium

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