5254 Organometallics, Vol. 29, No. 21, 2010
Denomme et al.
with the C1-C2-C3 plane of 2 canted so that the methylene
carbon C1 is farther from the metal center. For both complexes,
an assignment of the phenylpropargyl bonding as intermediate
between the η3-propargyl and allenyl limiting resonance struc-
tures (A and B) is supported by the bond lengths and angles. A
similar assignment of the bonding in Cp*(TBM)Zr(η3-CH2Ct
CCH3) was made on the basis of the crystal structure.17
The bonding of the propargyl ligands to the metal center in
3 was further analyzed by density functional theory calcula-
tions. Geometry optimizations and single-point calculations
were performed using the DFT B3LYP23,24 functional and
the lanl2dz25,26 basis set utilized in the Gaussian 03 program
package.27 Compositions of molecular orbitals were calcu-
lated using the AOMix program.28,29 Molecular orbital
pictures were generated from Gabedit.30 Initial calculations
were performed on 3 itself; however, the presence of the
phenyl rings complicated the interpretation by delocalizing
the molecular orbitals to such an extent that visualization
was difficult. In order to simplify the analysis, calculations
were carried out on the parent tetrapropargylzirconium
complex 4, in which the phenyl rings were replaced with
hydrogen to provide a computational model structure. The
crystallographically determined structure of 3 was used for
the positions of the non-H atoms of 4. Hydrogen atoms were
placed by geometry optimization, and the D2d symmetry of 3
was enforced in 4.
Figure 2. Thermal ellipsoids drawing of the molecular structure
of 3. Thermal ellipsoids are drawn at the 50% probability level.
Hydrogens on the phenyl rings are omitted for clarity.
˚
Table 2. Selected Bond Angles (deg) and Distances (A) for 3
Zr-C1
Zr-C2
Zr-C3
2.4955(2)
2.4043(1)
2.4474(2)
C1-C2
C2-C3
C3-C4
1.3760(2)
1.2490(0)
1.4500(2)
C2-Zr-C12
C2-Zr-C2A
C2-C1-Zr
C3-C2-C1
C3-C2-Zr
98.49(5)
C4-C3-Zr
C1-Zr-C1A
C11-Zr-C1
C2-Zr-C11
C3-Zr-C11
137.87(1)
128.88(8)
131.95(5)
108.31(6)
82.21(5)
96.11(7)
70.08(9)
154.38(2)
77.01(1)
16
˚
Table 3. Selected Bond Distances (A) for 2
C1-C2a
C2-C3
Zr-C1
Zr-C2
Zr-C3
1.344(5)
1.259(4)
2.658(4)
2.438(3)
2.361(3)
a The numbering system of the propargyl ligand is as shown for
compound 3 in Figure 2.
A molecular orbital diagram (see the Supporting In-
formation) was generated from the computational results
A crystallographic structure determination (Table 1) con-
firmed the identification of 3 as tetrakis(η3-phenylpropargyl)-
zirconium. The crystal structure of 3 verified the presence of
only the four propargyl ligands, all displaying η3 coordina-
tion (Figure 2). Complex 3 has an overall D2d symmetry, a
point group previously but rarely observed in other Zr
compounds.21,22 An EAN of 16 electrons for 3 results from
each phenylpropargyl ligand donating four electrons. Selected
bond angles and distances of 3 are shown in Table 2.
(23) Becke, A. D. J. Chem. Phys. 1993, 98, 5648–5652.
(24) Lee, C.; Yang, W.; Parr, R. G. Phys. Rev. B 1988, 37, 785–789.
(25) Vosko, S. H.; Wilk, L.; Nusair, M. Can. J. Phys. 1980, 58, 1200–
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Kudin, K. N.; Burant, J. C.; Millam, J. M.; Iyengar, S. S.; Tomasi, J.;
Barone, V.; Mennucci, B.; Cossi, M.; Scalmani, G.; Rega, N.; Petersson,
G. A.; Nakatsuji, H.; Hada, M.; Ehara, M.; Toyota, K.; Fukuda, R.;
Hasegawa, J.; Ishida, M.; Nakajima, T.; Honda, Y.; Kitao, O.; Nakai,
H.; Klene, M.; Li, X.; Knox, J. E.; Hratchian, H. P.; Cross, J. B.; Bakken,
V.; Adamo, C.; Jaramillo, J.; Gomperts, R.; Stratmann, R. E.; Yazyev,
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Although structural data have been reported for several
η3-propargyl complexes,16 the (phenylpropargyl)methyl-
zirconocene complex 2 (Table 3) is perhaps the best model
for the geometry of the propargyl ligands of 3. The phenylpro-
pargyl ligands of complexes 2 and 3 exhibit nearly identical
C-C-C bond angles of 154.4(3) and 154.38(2)°, respectively,
indicating similar bonding of the propargyl moiety to the Zr
center. The Zr-C2 bond lengths are approximately the same in
the two structures. However, the three Zr-C bond distances in
˚
3 are roughly the same length, differing only by a net 0.09 A
˚
overall, whereas those in 2 differ by a much larger value, 0.29 A,
(28) Gorelsky, S. I. AOMix: Program for Molecular Orbital Analysis;
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, 2009.
(29) Gorelsky, S. I.; Lever, A. B. P. J. Organomet. Chem. 2001, 635,
187–196.
(21) Girolami, G. S.; Wilkinson, G.; Thornton-Pett, M.; Hursthouse,
M. B. J. Chem. Soc., Dalton Trans. 1984, 2789–2794.
(22) Heyduk, A. F.; Blackmore, K. J.; Ketterer, N. A.; Ziller, J. W.
Inorg. Chem. 2005, 44, 468–470.