ARTICLEThis journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2013 J. Name., 2013, 00, 1-3 | 1 12 in stark contrast with the exclusive bridging disposition found for its dimolybdenum analogue. 9 Then, it was of interest to further explore the potential of ditungsten anion 1 to build new unsaturated hydrides and related species, which is the main purpose of this work. In this paper we give full details of the protonation reactions of 1, which we have now extended to other Brönsted acids and also to H + -related electrophiles such as gold(I) complexes [AuCl(PR 3 )] and organometal chlorides ClEPh 3 (E = Sn, Pb). As it will be shown below, most of these reactions involve the addition of the corresponding electrophile at the dimetal site of the anion, to give new unsaturated compounds related to those obtained for the dimolybdenum analogue of 1. In contrast, only the ditungsten anion 1 is able to undergo double protonation to give stable dihydride derivatives, which are relatively stable towards dehydrogenation in the absence of coordinating anions.
Scheme 1
Results and Discussion
Protonation of compounds 1 and 2The sodium salt of anion 1 is easily protonated in tetrahydrofuran solution by weak acids such as [NH 4 and another one bearing only terminal hydrides [W 2 Cp 2 (H) 2 (-PCy 2 )(CO) 2 ]X (3T and 3T')] (Scheme 2). These isomers seem to be also in equilibrium in solution, and a ratio of ca. 6:5 was found in both cases. Unfortunately, these species could not be isolated as pure solids and decomposed progressively upon attempted purification, but their structures are well supported by spectroscopic data and DFT calculations (see below). In any case we note that the nature of the metal (W instead of Mo) is having a critical role in the stability of these products, because protonation of the Mo 2 analogue of 2 fails to yield any observable dihydrides and leads instead to complex mixtures of products that could not be isolated or characterized.
Scheme 2To gain further insight into the role of the external anion in these reactions, we also examined reactions of 2 with some acids having coordinating anions. In particular, we have used three carboxylic acids of increasing acidity: acetic, benzoic and trifluoroacetic acid. No reaction was observed for the weaker acetic acid, but reaction of 2 with a slight excess of benzoic or trifluoroacetic acid gave the corresponding carboxylate-bridged complexes [W 2 Cp 2 (-PCy 2 )(-O:O´-O 2 CR)(CO) 2 ] [R = Ph(4a), CF 3 (4b)] (Chart 1), with the latter reaction taking place instantaneously at room temperature, while the former one requires thermal activation (completed within 30 min in refluxing toluene). There are two points of interest in these reactions: first, their rates correlate with the relative strength of these acids (CF 3 CO 2 H >> PhCO 2 H > CH 3 CO 2 H), which suggests that initial protonation to give cations analogous to 3 might be the first step of the process; secondly, the formation of the carboxylate complexes 4a,b requires release of hydrogen, likely occurring at...