“…Treatment of the tropylium complex with numerous anions provides a convenient route to 1-substituted cycloheptatriene metal complexes (187) /Mx /Mx CO I CO CO I CO CO CO (R'HCOf, CN~, 0CH3_,CeH5", CBH4C(CH3)3 ) However, treatment with CbH6yields, surprisingly, benzene chromium tricarbonyl, and the corresponding methyltropylium salt yields toluene chromium tricarbonyl, both presumably derived from collapse of the seven-membered ring (187). The reaction of cyclooctatrienes with the Group VI metal hexacarbonyls is in some respects similar to that of cycloheptatriene (103,105). The 1,3,5-isomer (XIX) gives red, diamagnetic, sublimable, crystalline complexes C8Hi0M(CO)3 (M = Cr, Mo) which are very similar to their cycloheptatriene analogs, although they are somewhat less stable to air and light; this may be because the six carbon atoms containing the three double bonds are not so coplanar as in the cycloheptatriene complex.…”