2. Organometallic Chemistry2
Course Roadmap
• A real example: the Monsanto Acetic Acid process
• Introduction: what is organometallic chemistry, and why should you care?
• Electron counting: the basis for understanding structure and reactivity
• An overview of Main-group and Transition metal chemistry
• Main group metal chemistry and "Umpolung"
• Intermezzo: characterization of organometallic compounds
• Transition metal chemistry: overview of common ligands
• Ligand substitution
• Insertion and elimination
• Oxidative insertion and reductive elimination
• More exotic steps
• Your own presentations
• Applications in catalysis
3. Organometallic Chemistry3
Example: Acetic Acid synthesis
Acetic acid is an important industrial chemical.
The traditional synthesis uses bio-oxidation of ethanol obtained via
fermentation:
C6H12O6 → 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2
C2H5OH + O2 → CH3COOH + H2O
This is not a clean and efficient process!
Industrial acetic acid synthesis:
CH3OH + CO → CH3COOH
Catalyzed by a rhodium complex.
5. Organometallic Chemistry5
Acetic Acid synthesis
This cycle is known
in considerable detail:
To understand it,
you need to be familiar
with electron counting
and common
reaction types
CO
Rh(CO) I2 2
-
MeRh(CO) I2 3
-
MeCORh(CO) I2 3
-
MeCORh(CO)I3
-
CH I3
CH COI3
CH COOH3
H O2
HI CH OH3
RhI
16 e
RhIII
18 e
RhIII
16 e
RhIII
18 e
oxidative
addition
insertion
reductive
elimination
ligand
binding
6. Organometallic Chemistry6
What is organometallic chemistry ?
Strictly speaking, the chemistry of compounds containing
at least one metal-carbon bond.
Metal hydrides are often included, H being considered as the
"smallest organic group" (as in propyl, ethyl, methyl, hydride).
Metal-carbon bonds are often formed temporarily or potentially,
so in practice many compounds are included
that do not actually contain metal-carbon bonds. Phosphine, NO
CO etc…metal-nitrogen, metal-oxygen, metal-halogen, and
even metal-hydrogen bonds all play a role
(Ph3P)3RhCl
H2
O
OMe
Li
O
OMe
Li
7. Transition metal organometallic compounds & Catalysis
Metal-carbon bond: a few from many?
Which one is organometallic? Ni(CO)4 or NaCN ?
French Chemist L. C. Cadet 1760 As2Me4 dicacodyl
Re
R3P CO
PR3
CH3
CO
Mo
P
R2
R2
P Cl
C
C
Mo
Cl
R2
P
P
R2
C
C
O O
OO
8. Organometallic Chemistry8
Why should you care ?
Organometallic chemistry is the basis of homogeneous catalysis,
which is the method of choice for clean and efficient synthesis of
fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals and many larger-scale
chemicals.
Many plastics (polythene, polypropene, butadiene rubber, ...)
and detergents are made via organometallic catalysis.
Organometallic chemistry is also the basis for understanding
important steps in heterogeneous catalysis reactions such as
olefin hydrogenation and CO oxidation.
Organometallic compounds are used on a large scale as
precursors for generation of semiconductors (AlN, GaAs,
etc).
Silicone rubbers are one of the few classes of organometallic
compounds used as "final products".
9. Organometallic Chemistry9
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
• Make an educated guess about stability and reactivity of a given
compound, based on (a.o.) electron counting rules
• Propose reasonable mechanisms, based on "standard"
organometallic reaction steps, for many metal-catalyzed
reactions
• Use steric and electronic arguments to predict how changes in
reactants, metal or ligands affect the outcome of reactions
• Read a current research literature paper, understand and
explain its content and significance
10. Organometallic Chemistry10
Useful Background Knowledge
Organometallic chemistry senior course because it builds on:
• Organic chemistry: reaction mechanisms, primarily nucleophilic
and electrophilic attack
• Inorganic Chemistry: electronegativity; electron counting and
stability; properties of (transition) metals
• Physical chemistry: orbitals and MO theory; free energy,
enthalpy and entropy
You will (now and then) need this background to understand the
material or make assignments etc
11. Historical Perspective
Organometallic chemistry timeline
• 1760 Louis Claude Cadet de Gassicourt investigates inks based
on Cobalt salts and isolates Cacodyl (CH3)2As—As(CH3)2from cobalt
mineral containing arsenic
• 1827 Zeise's salt is the first platinum / olefin complex Na[PtCl3C2H4]
• 1848 Edward Frankland discovers diethylzinc, Zn(Et)2, first metal
alkyl
• 1863 Charles Friedel and James Crafts prepare
organochlorosilanes
• 1890 Ludwig Mond discovers Nickel carbonyl
• 1899 Introduction of Grignard reaction, organomagnesium halides
• 1900 Paul Sabatier works on hydrogenation organic compounds
with metal catalysts.
• 1909 Paul Ehrlich introduces Salvarsan for the treatment of
syphilis, an early arsenic based organometallic compound
• 1912 Nobel Prize Victor Grignard and Paul Sabatier
Organometallic Chemistry11
12. • 1917. Schenk, lithium alkyls
• 1930 Henry Gilman works on lithium cuprates, see Gilman reagent
• 1951 Walter Hieber was awarded the Alfred Stock prize for his work with
metal carbonyl chemistry. Fe(CO)4H2 first transition metal hydride
• 1951 Ferrocene is discovered, Pauson and Miller
• 1955, Fisher, bis arene metal complex
• 1963 Nobel prize for Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta on Ziegler-Natta catalyst
• 1965 Discovery of cyclobutadieneiron tricarbonyl
• 1968 Heck reaction
• 1973 Nobel prize Geoffrey Wilkinson and Ernst Otto Fischer on
sandwich compounds Cr(CO)4(CR), first carbyne complex
• 1981 Nobel prize Roald Hoffmann and Kenichi Fukui for creation of the
Woodward-Hoffman Rules
Organometallic Chemistry12
13. • 1983. Bergman, Graham, C-H bond activation
• 1985, Green, Brookhart, agostic metal-hydrogen interaction
• 2001 Nobel prize W. S. Knowles, R. Noyori and Karl Barry
Sharpless for asymmetric hydrogenation
• 2005 Nobel prize Yves Chauvin, Robert Grubbs, and Richard
Schrock on metal-catalyzed alkene metathesis
• 2010 Nobel prize Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi, Akira
Suzuki for palladium catalyzed cross coupling reactions
Organometallic Chemistry13
14. Hapticity , ηx -
“eta-x”
• word used to describe the bonding mode of a ligand to a metal
center
• ηx values for carbon ligands where the x value is odd usually
indicate anionic carbon ligands
(e.g., η5
-Cp, η1
-CH3, η 1
-allyl or η3
-allyl, η1
-CH=CH2)
• The # of electrons donated (ionic method of electron counting)
by the ligand is usually equal to x + 1
• Even ηx values usually indicate neutral carbon π-system ligands
(e.g., η6
- C6H6, η2
-CH2=CH2, η4
-butadiene, η4
cyclooctadiene)
• The # of electrons donated by the ligand in the even (neutral)
case is usually just equal to x.
Organometallic Chemistry14
16. μx “mu-x”
• is the nomenclature used to indicate the presence of a
bridging ligand between two or more metal centers
• The x refers to the number of metal centers being bridged by
the ligand
• Usually most authors omit x = 2 and just use μ to indicate that
the ligand is bridging the simplest case of two metals
Organometallic Chemistry16
17. Ordering
• There is no set method of naming or ordering the listing of
metal and ligands in a metal/ligand complex that most authors
follow
• There are some qualitative rules that most authors seem to use
in American Chemical Society (ACS) publications
• 1) in formulas with Cp (cyclopentadienyl) ligands, the Cp usually
comes first, followed by the metal center: Cp2TiCl2
• 2) other anionic multi-electron donating ligands are also often
listed in front of the metal, e.g., trispyrazolylborate anion (Tp)
Organometallic Chemistry17
18. • 3) in formulas with hydride ligands, the hydride is sometimes
listed first. Rules # 1 & 2, however, take precedence over this
rule: HRh(CO)(PPh3)2 and Cp2TiH2
• 4) bridging ligands are usually placed next to the metals in
question, then followed by the other ligands (note that rules 1 &
2 take precedence): Co2(μ-CO)2(CO)6 , Rh2(μ-Cl)2(CO)4 , Cp2Fe2(μ-
CO)2(CO)2
• 5) anionic ligands are often listed before neutral ligands:
• RhCl(PPh3)3, CpRuCl(=CHCO2Et)(PPh3) (neutral carbene ligand),
PtIMe2(C≡CR)(bipy).
Organometallic Chemistry18
19. • Problem: Sketch structures for the following:
• a) CpRuCl(=CHCO2Et)(PPh3)
• b) Co2(μ-CO)2(CO)6 (Co-Co bond, several possible
structures)
• c) trans-HRh(CO)(PPh3)2 [Rh(+1) = d8
]
• d) Ir2(μ-Cl)2(CO)4 [Ir(+1) = d8
]
• e) Cp2TiCl2
Organometallic Chemistry19
22. 18 Electron "Rule“ , Effective Atomic Number rule
(EAN)
• Organic compounds, of course, follow the 8 electron rule: there can
only be a maximum of 8 valence electrons around a carbon center
• The vast majority of stable diamagnetic organometallic compounds
have 16 or 18 valence electrons due to the presence of the five d
orbitals which can hold 10 more electrons relative to C, O, N, etc.
• Electron counting is the process of determining the number of
valence electrons about a metal center in a given transition metal
complex
• Complexes with 18 e- counts are referred to as saturated, because
there are no empty low-lying orbitals to which another incoming
ligand can coordinate. Complexes with counts lower than 18e- are
called unsaturated and can electronically bind additional ligands
Organometallic Chemistry22
23. :
To determine the electron count for a metal complex
• 1) Determine the oxidation state of the transition metal
center(s) and the metal centers resulting d-electron count.
To do this one must:
a) note any overall charge on the metal complex
b) know the charges of the ligands bound to the metal
center (ionic ligand method)
c) know the number of electrons being donated to the metal
center from each ligand (ionic ligand method)
• 2) Add up the electron counts for the metal center and
ligands
Organometallic Chemistry23
30. Two methods of electron counting
Organometallic Chemistry30
Ionic Method of electron-counting
95% of inorganic/organometallic chemists use the ionic method
The ionic method assigns formal charges to the metal and ligands in
order to keep the ligands with an even # of electrons and (usually) a
filled valence shell
the neutral method
Considers everything to be neutral
Synthetically, the ionic method makes more sense
31. The two methods compared:
some examples
N.B. like oxidation state assignments,
electron counting is a formalism and
does not necessarily reflect the
distribution of electrons in the
molecule – useful though
Some ligands donate the same number
of electrons
Number of d-electrons and donation
of the other ligands can differ
Now we will look at practical
examples on the black board
35. Total valence electron counts in
d-block organometallic clusters
• Each low oxidation state metal cluster cage possesses a
characteristic number of valence electrons (ve)
• Any organometallic complex with a triangular M3 framework requires
48 valence electrons,
for example:
Organometallic Chemistry35
38. Exercise
Organometallic Chemistry38
Limitations of total valence counting schemes
For example rhodium carbonyl chemistry [Rh5CO15 ]-
It possesses 76 valence electrons and yet has a trigonal bipyramidal
Rh5-core, for which 72 electrons are usual
41. Biphase/multiple phaseBiphase/multiple phase
Activity (of metal content)Activity (of metal content)
selectivityselectivity
Conditions of reactionConditions of reaction
Life-time of catalystLife-time of catalyst
Sensitivity of deactivationSensitivity of deactivation
Problems due to diffusionProblems due to diffusion
Recycling of catalystRecycling of catalyst
Steric and electronic propertiesSteric and electronic properties
MechanismMechanism
Mono phaseMono phase
highhigh variablevariable
highhigh variablevariable
mildmild harshharsh
variablevariable longlong
lowlow highhigh
nonenone
usually difficultusually difficult
easily changedeasily changed
realistic models do existrealistic models do exist
difficult to solvedifficult to solve
can easily be donecan easily be done
no variation possibleno variation possible
not obviousnot obvious
Homogenous versus Heterogenous CatalysisHomogenous versus Heterogenous Catalysis
Katalyse ist eine Schlüssel- und Querschnittstechnologie für das neue Jahrhundert.
Die verschiedenen Katalysedisziplinen strahlen in nahezu alle Bereiche unserer Gesellschaft hinein.