Laura J. Clouston

Catalytic Silylation of Dinitrogen with a Dicobalt Complex

A dicobalt complex catalyzes N2 silylation with Me3SiCl and KC8 under 1 atm N2 at ambient temperature. Tris(trimethylsilyl)amine is formed with an initial turnover rate of 1 N(TMS)3/min, ultimately reaching a turnover number of ∼200. The dicobalt species features a metal-metal interaction, which we postulate is important to its function. Although N2 functionalization occurs at a single cobalt site, the second cobalt center modifies the electronics at the active site. Density functional calculations reveal that the Co-Co interaction evolves during the catalytic cycle: weakening upon N2 binding, breaking with silylation of the metal-bound N2 and reforming with expulsion of [N2(SiMe3)3](-).

Role of the metal in the bonding and properties of bimetallic complexes involving manganese, iron, and cobalt.

A multidentate ligand platform is introduced that enables the isolation of both homo- and heterobimetallic complexes of divalent first-row transition metal ions such as Mn(II), Fe(II), and Co(II). By means of a two-step metalation strategy, five bimetallic coordination complexes were synthesized with the general formula M1M2Cl(py3tren), where py3tren is the triply deprotonated form of N,N,N-tris(2-(2-pyridylamino)ethyl)amine. The metal-metal pairings include dicobalt (1), cobalt-iron (2), cobalt-manganese (3), diiron (4), and iron-manganese (5). The bimetallic complexes have been investigated by X-ray diffraction and X-ray anomalous scattering studies, cyclic voltammetry, magnetometry, Mössbauer spectroscopy, UV-vis-NIR spectroscopy, NMR spectroscopy, combustion analyses, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, and ab initio quantum chemical methods. Only the diiron chloride complex in this series contains a metal-metal single bond (2.29 Å). The others show weak metal-metal interactions (2.49 to 2.53 Å). The diiron complex is also distinct with a septet ground state, while the other bimetallic species have much lower spin states from S = 0 to S = 1. We propose that the diiron system has delocalized metal-metal bonding electrons, which seems to correlate with a short metal-metal bond and a higher spin state. Multiconfigurational wave function calculations revealed that, indeed, the metal-metal bonding orbitals in the diiron complex are much more delocalized than those of the dicobalt analogue.

Mixed-Valent Dicobalt and Iron-Cobalt Complexes with High-Spin Configurations and Short Metal-Metal Bonds

Cobalt-cobalt and iron-cobalt bonds are investigated in coordination complexes with formally mixed-valent [M2](3+) cores. The trigonal dicobalt tris(diphenylformamidinate) compound, Co2(DPhF)3, which was previously reported by Cotton, Murillo, and co-workers (Inorg. Chim. Acta 1996, 249, 9), is shown to have an energetically isolated, high-spin sextet ground-state by magnetic susceptibility and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. A new tris(amidinato)amine ligand platform is introduced. By tethering three amidinate donors to an apical amine, this platform offers two distinct metal-binding sites. Using the phenyl-substituted variant (abbreviated as L(Ph)), the isolation of a dicobalt homobimetallic and an iron-cobalt heterobimetallic are demonstrated. The new [Co2](3+) and [FeCo](3+) cores have high-spin sextet and septet ground states, respectively. Their solid-state structures reveal short metal-metal bond distances of 2.29 Å for Co-Co and 2.18 Å for Fe-Co; the latter is the shortest distance for an iron-cobalt bond to date. To assign the positions of iron and cobalt atoms as well as to determine if Fe/Co mixing is occurring, X-ray anomalous scattering experiments were performed, spanning the Fe and Co absorption energies. These studies show only a minor amount of metal-site mixing in this complex, and that FeCoL(Ph) is more precisely described as (Fe0.94(1)Co0.06(1))(Co0.95(1)Fe0.05(1))L(Ph). The iron-cobalt heterobimetallic has been further characterized by Mössbauer spectroscopy. Its isomer shift of 0.65 mm/s and quadrupole splitting of 0.64 mm/s are comparable to the related diiron complex, Fe2(DPhF)3. On the basis of spectroscopic data and theoretical calculations, it is proposed that the formal [M2](3+) cores are fully delocalized.

Bimetallic Cobalt–Dinitrogen Complexes: Impact of the Supporting Metal on N2 Activation

Expanding a family of cobalt bimetallic complexes, we report the synthesis of the Ti(III) metalloligand, Ti[N(o-(NCH2P((i)Pr)2)C6H4)3] (abbreviated as TiL), and three heterobimetallics that pair cobalt with an early transition metal ion: CoTiL (1), K(crypt-222)[(N2)CoVL] (2), and K(crypt-222)[(N2)CoCrL] (3). The latter two complexes, along with previously reported K(crypt-222)[(N2)CoAlL] and K(crypt-222)[(N2)Co2L], constitute an isostructural series of cobalt bimetallics that bind dinitrogen in an end-on fashion, i.e. [(N2)CoML](-). The characterization of 1-3 includes cyclic voltammetry, X-ray crystallography, and infrared spectroscopy. The [CoTiL](0/-) reduction potential is extremely negative at -3.20 V versus Fc(+)/Fc. In the CoML series where M is a transition metal, the reduction potentials shift anodically as M is varied across the first-row period. Among the [(N2)CoML](-) compounds, the dinitrogen ligand is weakly activated, as evidenced by N-N bond lengths between 1.110(8) and 1.135(4) Å and by N-N stretching frequencies between 1971 and 1995 cm(-1). Though changes in νN2 are subtle, the extent of N2 activation decreases across the first-row period. A correlation is found between the [CoML](0/-) reduction potentials and N2 activation, where the more cathodic potentials correspond to lower N-N frequencies. Theoretical calculations of the [(N2)CoML](-) complexes reveal important variations in the electronic structure and Co-M interactions, which depend on the exact nature of the supporting metal ion, M.