N-heterocyclic carbene stabilized copper- and silver-phenylchalcogenolate ring complexes

Will J Humenny; Stefan Mitzinger; Chhatra B Khadka; Bahareh Khalili Najafabadi; Isabelle Vieira; John F Corrigan

doi:10.1039/c2dt11998f

N-heterocyclic carbene stabilized copper- and silver-phenylchalcogenolate ring complexes

Dalton Trans. 2012 Apr 21;41(15):4413-22. doi: 10.1039/c2dt11998f. Epub 2012 Feb 22.

Authors

Will J Humenny¹, Stefan Mitzinger, Chhatra B Khadka, Bahareh Khalili Najafabadi, Isabelle Vieira, John F Corrigan

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada.

PMID: 22354532
DOI: 10.1039/c2dt11998f

Abstract

The ligation of a N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) to group 11 metal salts (Cu, Ag) was explored as an alternative to PR(3) ligands for the formation of copper- and silver-chalcogenolate cluster complexes. AgOAc and CuCl salts ligate with the NHC 1,3-di-isopropylbenzimidazole-2-ylidene ((i)Pr(2)-bimy) forming [Ag(OAc)((i)Pr(2)-bimy)] 1, [Ag(OAc)((i)Pr(2)-bimy)(2)] 2, [CuCl((i)Pr(2)-bimy)](2)3 and [CuCl((i)Pr(2)-bimy)(2)] 4 depending on the ratio of ligand to metal used. These have been characterized via spectroscopic and crystallographic methods. Complexes 1 and 3 were reacted with S(Ph)SiMe(3) and Se(Ph)SiMe(3) to form the polynuclear metal-chalcogenolates [Ag(4)(μ-EPh)(4)((i)Pr(2)-bimy)(4)] (5, E = S; 6, E = Se) and [Cu(3)(μ-EPh)(3)((i)Pr(2)-bimy)(3)] (7, E = S; 8, E = Se) in good yields. The structures of 5-8, as determined by single crystal X-ray crystallography, are described.