A ruthenium dihydrogen germylene complex and the catalytic synthesis of digermoxane

Katharine Smart (1) , Emmanuelle Mothes-Martin (1) , Laure Vendier (1) , Robin N. Perutz (2) , Mary Grellier (1) , Sylviane Sabo-Etienne (1)

1 LCC - Laboratoire de chimie de coordination
2 Department of Chemistry [York]

A germylene complex with a labile η2-H2 coligand, [RuH2(═GePh2)(η2-H2)(PCy3)2] (2), was isolated in very good yield from the reaction of the bis(dihydrogen) complex [RuH2(η2-H2)2(PCy3)2] (1) with Ph2GeH2. The hydrolytic synthesis of 1,1,3,3-tetraphenyldigermoxane, (HPh2Ge)2O, was catalyzed by 2, 1, and the tricyclopentylphosphine analogue 1Cyp. Coordination of digermoxane by ruthenium led to a complex best formulated as [RuH2(η2-H-GePh22O)(PCy3)2] on the basis of X-ray, NMR, IR, and DFT studies.

Domaines: Chimie de coordination

Katharine Smart, Emmanuelle Mothes-Martin, Laure Vendier, Robin N. Perutz, Mary Grellier, et al.. A ruthenium dihydrogen germylene complex and the catalytic synthesis of digermoxane. Organometallics, 2015, 34 (16), pp.4158-4163. ⟨10.1021/acs.organomet.5b00570⟩. ⟨hal-01923280⟩