As an extension of our continuing work in metallocenium chemistry, we report here on new functionalized rhodocenium salts. In contrast to isoelectronic cobaltocenium compounds, rhodium as a 4d metal allows synthetic routes via prefunctionalized cyclopentadienyl half-sandwich precursors, thereby facilitating access to monofunctionalized rhodocenium salts containing substituents comprising methyl, trimethylsilyl, carboxylate and carboxylate ester as well as amide derivatives. Synthetic aspects, scope and limitations, as well as spectroscopic ( 1 H/ 13 C-NMR, IR, HR-MS), and structural (XRD) properties
IntroductionAfter almost 70 years of research in metallocene chemistry, still relatively little is known about cobaltocenium, rhodocenium and iridocenium salts that are isoelectronic and as stable and redox responsive as their ubiquitous ferrocene congeners. The main reason for the underdeveloped chemistry of these metallocenium salts is their intrinsic cationic nature, making it quite difficult to access functionalized derivatives by standard chemical reactions developed for arenes. However, in recent years [a] mers and subsequently polymerized to the corresponding sidechain functionalized redox-responsive polymers.In this contribution, we aim at developing rhodocenium chemistry a bit further, in part based on our experience in cobaltocenium chemistry, [1,2] and disclose here a first chemoselective synthesis of rhodocenium monocarboxylic acid hexafluoridophosphate which is a key synthon for other monosubstituted rhodocenium salts accessible by standard carboxylic acid reactivity. The structural, spectroscopic and electrochemical properties of these new rhodocenium derivatives are compared with those of their cobaltocenium congeners.
Results and Discussion
SynthesisIn general, rhodocenium chemistry is somewhat different from cobaltocenium chemistry, as is often observed when comparing the reactivities and stabilities of analogous compounds of 3d vs. 4d/5d metals in a homologous group of elements. Successful synthetic routes to cobaltocenium compounds cannot simply Scheme 1. Synthesis of compounds.