- The full article entitled “A Bis-(carbone) Pincer Ligand and Its Coordinative Behavior toward Multi-Metallic Configurations” can be found at the Angewandte Chemie International Edition website https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202201884
- Authors: Bamlaku Semagne Aweke, Cheng-Han Yu, Minna Zhi, Wen-Ching Chen, Glenn P. A. Yap, Lili Zhao* and Tiow-Gan Ong*
Carbones are divalent carbon(0) species that contain two lone pairs of electrons. Herein, we have prepared the first known stable and isolable free bis- (carbone) pincer framework with a well-defined solid-state structure. This bis-(carbone) ligand is an effective scaffold for forming monometallic (Ni and Pd) and trinuclear heterometallic complexes with Au–Pd–Au, Au–Ni–Au, and Cu–Ni–Cu configurations. Sophisticated quantum-theoretical analyses found that the metal-metal interactions are too weak to play a significant role in upholding these multi-metallic configurations; rather, the four lone pairs of electrons within the bis-(carbone) framework are the main contributors to the stability of the complexes.
Figure 1. (top) Carbone-based pincer scaffolds of carbodiphosphoranes (I and II) and carbodicarbenes (III, IV, and V) reported to date. (bottom) bis-(carbone) ligand in this work.