Treatment
of the tetrahedral cluster H2Ru3(CO)9(μ3-S) (1) with 2-(diphenylphosphino)thioanisole
(PS) furnishes the cluster H2Ru3(CO)7(κ2-PS)(μ3-S) (2).
Cluster 2, which exhibits a chelated thiophosphine ligand
(κ2-PS), exists as a pair of diastereomers with K
eq = 1.55 at 298 K that differ in their disposition
of ligands at the Ru(CO)(κ2-PS) center. The PS ligand
occupies the equatorial sites (Peq,Seq) in the
kinetic isomer and axial and equatorial sites (Pax,Seq) in the thermodynamically favored species. The solid-state
structure of the kinetic isomer of 2 has been established
by X-ray diffraction analysis, and the reversible first-order kinetics
to equilibrium have been measured experimentally by NMR spectroscopy
and HPLC over the temperature range 293–323 K. The substitution
reaction involving 1 and the isomerization of the PS
ligand in 2 were investigated by DFT calculations. The
computational results support a phosphine-induced expansion of the
cluster polyhedron that is triggered by the associative addition of
the PS donor to 1. The vertex opening in 1 is selective and leads to the cleavage of a hydride-bridged Ru–Ru
bond to give the phosphine-substituted cluster H2Ru3(CO)9(κ1-PS)(μ3-S) as the initial adduct. Chelation of the pendant MeS moiety follows
with a loss of CO to give the kinetic substitution product H2Ru3(CO)7(κ2-Peq,Seq)(μ3-S) (2). The observed
isomerization of the PS ligand in 2 is best explained
by a tripodal rotation of the CO and PS groups at the Ru(CO)(κ2-PS) center that is preceded by a regiospecific migration
of one of the edge-bridging hydrides to the nonhydride-bridged Ru–Ru
bond in 2.