The reduction of meta-methyl-substituted iodobenzene with activated calcium in tetrahydrofuran (THF) yields [(3-MeC 6 H 4 )CaI(thf) 4 ] (1) and [(3,5-Me 2 C 6 H 3 )CaI(thf) 4 ] (2). The reaction of 3-halo-1-iodobenzene with calcium powder leads to the formation of the corresponding post-Grignard reagents [(3-XC 6 H 4 )CaI(thf) 4 ] [X = F (3), Cl (4), Br (5), and I (6)]. The synthesis of the thf adducts of 3-methoxyphenylcalcium iodide (7) and β-naphthylcalcium iodide (8) follows the same strategy. All post-Grignard reagents show a characteristic low-field shift for the calciumbound carbon atoms in 13 C NMR spectra. The molecular structures of 1, 2, 4, and 8 show distorted octahedral environments for the calcium centers with the aryl and halide anions in a trans arrangement.
■ INTRODUCTIONGrignard reagents represent widely used organomagnesium compounds that were introduced into preparative organic and organometallic chemistry more than a century ago. 1−3 Because of the importance of these reagents, Grignard was honored with the Nobel Prize in 1912. Despite the fact that early attempts to prepare arylcalcium halides also date back more than a 100 years, 4 the first structurally characterized arylcalcium complexes consisted of oxygen-centered oligonuclear arylcalcium clusters. 5,6 Nevertheless, this success of isolation of arylcalcium derivatives intensified the efforts to also isolate and characterize arylcalcium halides that can be considered as post-Grignard reagents with mesitylcalcium iodide being the first structurally characterized representative 7 and entering the textbooks shortly thereafter. 8 Knowing the requirements to isolate crystalline arylcalcium complexes, many of such derivatives were prepared and investigated spectroscopically as well as via derivatization reactions. Several recent review articles summarize this vastly growing arylcalcium (post-Grignard) chemistry. 9−12The synthesis of arylcalcium complexes succeeds with high yields if iodoarenes are reduced with activated calcium in Lewis basic solvents, such as ethers. 9−12 Amines were also used to stabilize arylcalcium complexes. 13 As also observed for classical Grignard reagents, a Schlenk-type equilibrium converts arylcalcium halides into homoleptic diarylcalcium and calcium dihalides depending mainly on solvent and temperature. Substitution of iodide by an alkoxide shifts this equilibrium quantitatively to the side of the homoleptic complexes. 14 Because of the high reactivity of the arylcalcium complexes, degradation of ethers often was observed, 7,15,16 as is also known for organyllithium 17 and, in minor extent, for Grignard reagents, 18 justifying to consider these organometallics as superbases. 19 On the basis of similar electronegativities of lithium and calcium, a comparable reactivity can be envisioned that should be higher than that of Grignard reagents due to a larger ionic character of the metal−carbon bonds.Despite the vastly growing knowledge of post-Grignard reagents, the influence of the substitution pattern on reactivity an...