Awakening of a Sleeping Beauty in Organometallic Chemistry

Awakening of a Sleeping Beauty in Organometallic Chemistry

Author: ChemViews

With respect to AlCp* and GaCp*, the sterically less demanding compound GaCp (Cp = C5H5) is still a Sleeping Beauty since its discovery nearly twenty years ago. Up to now it was exclusively available by the reaction of metastable GaX solutions with, for example, LiCp.

A team around Hansgeorg Schnöckel, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), and Andreas Schnepf, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany, presented an easy synthesis of GaCp that can be carried out with standard laboratory equipment. They treated solid “GaI” with NaCp in toluene at low temperatures to obtain a colorless solution of GaCp after filtration.

CaCp is less sterically demanding than the related Cp* compound and might therefore open the possibility of higher coordination numbers in coordination chemistry. Additionally Cp is in general a lot easier to obtain and a much more cost-efficient ligand than Cp*.


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