5298 Organometallics, Vol. 20, No. 25, 2001
Esteruelas et al.
complex, extensively studied by Caulton et al.,9 shows
interesting features concerning hydride arrangement.
An early paper suggested that it is a dihydrogen
trihydride complex.9a This characterization was based
on a short T1(min) measured by solution NMR tech-
niques. Although this has often been considered a valid
criterion for the detection of a dihydrogen moiety, the
structure was later reevaluated through neutron dif-
fraction techniques, and finally it was best described
as a dodecahedral pentahydride. This assignment,
however, posed the problem of the anomalously short
T1(min), which might indicate that some residual
H‚‚‚H interaction is present between a pair of hydrides.
Indeed, the neutron diffraction structure located two
hydrides at 1.49 Å from each other,9b a large distance
for a typical dihydrogen unit, but shorter than the sum
of their van der Waals radii. This indicates that the
complex [OsH5(PMe2Ph)3]+ may belong to the rather
diffuse range of elongated dihydrogen complexes. It
shows also remarkable reactivity patterns, hydrogenat-
ing ethylene under mild conditions (25 °C, 1 atm) to
generate [OsH(C2H4)2(PMe2Ph)3]+ and alkane.9b The
saturated character of the pentahydride requires the
dissociation of at least a hydrogen molecule before the
coordination of the hydrogenated olefin. This step of the
hydrogenation process can be formally viewed as the
substitution of a π-acceptor H2 ligand by ethylene. Thus,
although the neutron diffraction study indicates the
absence of H2 ligands in the solid at 11 K, the whole of
the experimental data is compatible with the forma-
tion in solution of dihydrogen species in the [OsH5-
(PMe2Ph)3]+ systems at a very low energy cost.
Early calculations for the [OsH5(PH3)3]+ model system
from Lin and Hall predicted the pentahydride complex
to be the most stable species.10a Later Maseras et al.
analyzed exhaustively the structural features of this
model complex.10b In their systematic approach, 22
different initial structures were carefully examined
through ab initio calculations. This analysis led to the
description of five low-lying isomers, the lowest of them
being a dodecahedral pentahydride complex, in very
good agreement with the actual neutron diffraction of
[OsH5(PMe2Ph)3]+, published one year later.9b
Despite the success of theoretical calculations in the
determination of the most stable structures in several
polyhydride complexes, an accurate description of these
systems is still lacking. On one hand, most of the
calculations have been carried out in model systems,
replacing the actual PR3 ligands by PH3, and this
simplification may lead to a significant error in some
cases. For instance, experimental results on ReH7(PR3)2
derivatives have shown an extreme dependence of one
H-H distance on the nature of the PR3 ligands.11 On
the other hand, high-level theoretical methods that give
a balanced description in all the regions of the potential
energy surface (polyhydride, dihydrogen, bisdihydro-
gen) are required to study the energetics of the H motion
in polyhydrides. The experimental values of the dihy-
drogen/dihydride equilibrium in the Kubas complex
have been reproduced only theoretically by using
CCSD(T) calculations.12
As a part of our study on the chemical properties of
the hexahydride OsH6(PiPr3)2,6d,13 we have observed
that, in addition to [OsH5(PMe2Ph)3]+, mixed-phosphine
[OsH5(PR3)2(PR3′)]+ complexes can be prepared. In this
paper we report (i) the synthesis of [OsH5(PHPh2)-
(PiPr3)2]BF4 and [OsH5{P(OMe)Ph2}(PiPr3)2]BF4 and
related tetra-, tri-, and dihydride compounds; (ii) the
X-ray-determined structure of [OsH5(PHPh2)(PiPr3)2]-
BF4; and (iii) theoretical studies on [OsH5(PH3)3]+,
[OsH5(PHPh2)(PiPr3)2]+, [OsH5{P(OMe)Ph2}(PiPr3)2]+,
and [OsH5(PMe2Ph)3]+ by means of high-level quan-
tum mechanical (QM) and hybrid quantum mechanics/
molecular mechanics (QM/MM) IMOMM calculations.
Resu lts a n d Discu ssion
1. Rea ction s of OsH6(P iP r 3)2 w ith P HP h 2. OsH6-
(PiPr2Ph)2 has been characterized by neutron diffraction
as a classical hexahydride with a typical dodecahedral
coordination geometry.14 Although these OsH6(PR3)2
complexes do not contain any dihydrogen ligand, B3LYP
calculations gave a low value for the dissociation energy
of molecular hydrogen (15.4 kcal/mol),13i while our high-
level CCSD(T)//B3LYP calculations gave an even smaller
value (10.0 kcal/mol). This suggests that the elimination
of molecular hydrogen from the hexahydride is easy. In
agreement with this, the treatment of OsH6(PiPr3)2 (1)
with 1.0 equiv of diphenylphosphine in toluene at 80
°C leads after 1 h to the tetrahydride OsH4(PHPh2)-
(PiPr3)2 (2), which was isolated as a white solid in 71%
yield, according to eq 1.
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