Julius F. Kögel, Universität Bremen, Germany, and colleagues have reacted the bulky perfluorinated trityl alcohol (C₆F₅)₃COH with different metal precursors, i.e., Na(N(SiMe₃)₂), Mg(ⁿBu₂), ZnEt₂, or Ti(OⁱPr)₄. The team also reacted the lithium salt (C₆F₅)₃COLi with AgBF₄ or TlF in CH₂Cl₂ at room temprature.

The team used single-crystal X-ray diffraction to characterize the products (example pictured above). They found a rich variety of different shapes for the synthesized metal complexes, which all contain the anionic ligand [(C₆F₅)₃CO]^–, e.g., a cube, a tetrahedron, a square, a rhombus, and a butterfly structure (simplified structures pictured below).

 

The discovered structures show interesting properties, such as interactions between the metal centers and carbon-bound fluorine atoms. According to the researchers, this work improves the understanding of the structural chemistry of [(C₆F₅)₃CO]^– and could provide novel precursors for the preparation of new Lewis superacids.

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• Metal Complexes of the Perfluorinated Trityl Alkoxide [(C₆F₅)₃CO]⁻,
  Julius F. Kögel, Felix Feige, Daniel Duvinage, Enno Lork, Alexey Y. Timoshkin, Jens Beckmann,
  Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. 2022.
  https://doi.org/10.1002/ejic.202100872