Angewandte
Chemie
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201202337
Quintuple Bonding
ꢀ
Stepwise Construction of the Cr Cr Quintuple Bond and Its
Destruction upon Axial Coordination**
Yu-Lun Huang, Duan-Yen Lu, Hsien-Cheng Yu, Jen-Shiang K. Yu, Chia-Wei Hsu,
Ting-Shen Kuo, Gene-Hsiang Lee, Yu Wang, and Yi-Chou Tsai*
Although quadruple bonding in transition-metal chemistry
has been considered a thoroughly studied area,[1a] the concept
of multiple bonding[1b] was reinvigorated in 2005 by the
Wurtz reductive coupling reaction of the corresponding
chloride coordinated precursors.[2,3] The previously reported
quintuple-bonded dichromium examples were obtained by
alkali metal reduction of the mononuclear [LCrCl2-
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seminal discovery of the first Cr Cr quintuple bond in the
(THF)2][3c,e] or dimeric complexes [LCr(m-Cl)]2 (L = mono-
[3]
isolable dimeric chromium compound Ar’CrCrAr’ (Ar’ = 2,6-
(2,6-iPr2C6H3-)2C6H3) by Power and co-workers.[2] Since then,
the structures of several Group 6 homobimetallic compounds
dentate or bidentate ligand). It should be noted that all these
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precursors lack Cr Cr bonding. Besides, we have recently
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with very short Cr Cr (1.73–1.75 ꢀ) and Mo Mo (2.02 ꢀ)
quintuple bonds have been characterized.[3] All these remark-
able quintuple-bonded bimetal units are supported by either
C- or N-based bridging ligands. Based on their structures,
these quintuple-bonded dinuclear compounds can be simply
classified into two types as illustrated in Figure 1. The
existence of the type I quintuple
demonstrated that the metal–metal quintuple and quadruple
bond can be constructed from the corresponding quadruple
and triple bond, respectively. For example, the d bonds in the
quintuple-bonded species [Mo2{m-h2-RC(N-2,6-iPr2C6H3)2}2]
(R = H, Ph)[3h] and quadruple-bonded complex [Mo2{m-h2-
Me2Si(N-2,6-iPr2C6H3)2}2][6] are formed by alkali metal reduc-
tion of the corresponding chloride-coordinated quadruple-
and triple-bonded species, respectively. However, the forma-
bond was recently corroborated by
experiments,[4a] and the bonding
tion mechanism of the metal metal quintuple bonds has not
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paradigms of both types were real-
been investigated. To this end, continuing our exploration in
the field of quintuple-bond chemistry, we herein report the
ized by theoretical investigations.[4]
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Preliminary reactivity studies on the
type I complexes show that they are
reactive towards the activation of
small molecules and display inter-
esting complexation with olefins and
alkynes.[5]
construction of a complex with a Cr Cr quintuple bond by
two subsequent one-electron-reduction steps from a halide-
free homo-divalent dichromium complex to a mixed-valent
intermediate (CrI, CrII), and then to the final quintuple-
bonded product. Structural characterization of these dichro-
mium compounds is important to shed light on the formation
mechanism of the metal–metal quintuple bonds. Moreover,
Figure 1. Two types of
quintuple-bonded com-
plexes.
Up to now, both type I and II compounds have been
exclusively synthesized by a procedure analogous to the
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the metal metal quadruple bonds can be dramatically
elongated by intramolecular axial coordination, but such an
interaction in the quintuple-bonding system has not been
investigated. We report herein that the Cr Cr quintuple bond
can be readily cleaved by disproportionation induced by
intramolecular axial coordination.
[*] Y.-L. Huang, D.-Y. Lu, H.-C. Yu, C.-W. Hsu, Prof. Dr. Y.-C. Tsai
Department of Chemistry and Frontier Research Center on
Fundamental and Applied Sciences of Matters
ꢀ
National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013 (Taiwan)
E-mail: yictsai@mx.nthu.edu.tw
As illustrated in Scheme 1, treatment of CrCl2 in THF
with 1 equiv of dilithiated 2,6-diamidopyridine Li2[2,6-(2,6-
iPr2C6H3-N)2-4-CH3C5H2N] (1) and Li2[2,6-(iPr3SiN)2-C5H3N]
(2), prepared by adding 2 equiv of nBuLi to the correspond-
ing 2,6-diaminopyridine in n-hexane, yields two dark green
dimeric complexes [{(THF)Cr(m-k1:k2-2,6-(2,6-iPr2C6H3-N)2-
4-CH3C5H2N)}2] (3) and [{(THF)Cr(m-k1:k2-2,6-(iPr3Si-
N)2C5H3N)}2] (4), respectively, in good yields (62% for 3
and 74% for 4). The 1H NMR spectra of 3 and 4 display broad
signals in the range of 20 and ꢀ10 ppm, so little useful
information could be obtained.
The dinuclear nature of 3 and 4 was confirmed by single-
crystal X-ray crystallography[7] and their molecular structures
are depicted in Figure 2 and Figure S2 in the Supporting
Information). It is interesting to note that although these two
dinuclear species bear the same number of ligands, they
exhibit very different structural conformations. In compound
3, each Cr atom is five-coordinate, ligated by four nitrogen
Prof. Dr. J.-S. K. Yu
Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology and
Department of Biological Science and Technology
National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, 30010 (Taiwan)
T.-S. Kuo
Department of Chemistry
National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 11677 (Taiwan)
Dr. G.-H. Lee, Prof. Dr. Y. Wang
Department of Chemistry
National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617 (Taiwan)
[**] We are grateful to the National Science Council, Taiwan for financial
support under grants NSC 99-2113M-007-012-MY3 (Y.C.T.) and 100-
2627-B-009-001 (J.S.K.Y.), and the “Center for Bioinformatics
Research of Aiming for the Top University Program” of NCTU and
MoE, Taiwan.
Supporting information for this article (including experimental
details for the synthesis and characterization of complexes 3–8) is
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 1 – 6
ꢀ 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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