Chemists develop new reagent for deelectronation

The reagent provides access to the class of clustered transition metal carbonyl cations. Perhaloanthracene radical cations deelectronize trimetal dodecacarbonyls under carbon monoxide pressure to form the first clustered transition metal cations. Chemists from Freiburg have succeeded in converting polynuclear transition metal carbonyls into their homoleptic complex cations using typical inorganic oxidants. In their work, the research team of Malte Sellin , Christian Friedmann and Ingo Krossing from the Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry and Maximilian Mayländer and Sabine Richert from the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Freiburg show that the anthracene derivative with a half-step potential of 1. Volts vs Fc^0/+ can be converted to the radical deelectronating salt by a nitrosonium salt. "We have thus pushed the frontier of fundamental research in coordination chemistry as well as in organometallic chemistry a bit further," Krossing said. The research group published their findings in the journal Chemical Science .