Organometallic Chemistry

Compounds that contain M-C bonds

•How strong or weak is a M-C bond?

•How stable are the organometallic compounds?

Organo-element Chemistry!
 Catalysis
• A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate
of a reaction but it is not itself consumed
• Catalysis plays a vital role in the production of
fuels, commodity chemicals, fine chemicals and
pharmaceuticals as well as providing the means
for experimental safeguards all over the world
• More than 60% of all chemical products and
90% of all chemical processes are based on
catalysis.
• A whole new technology appeared based on
organometallic catalysis in olefin polymerization
• Nobel prizes for chemistry have been awarded
to Zieglar and Natta (1963), Fischer and
Willkinson (1973) for their discoveries in
Organometallic chemistry and homogeneous
catalysis
• More recently, in 2005, Chauvin, Schrock, and
Grubbs were awarded Nobel Prize for
developing organometallic catalysts for olefin
methathesis.
• Catalysis can be of two types Heterogeneous
and Homogeneous
 Two phases One phase

Liquid Solid Single liquid

phase phase phase

Heterogeneous Homogeneous
• Homogeneous Catalysis: They are present in the same
phase as the reagents
• Heterogeneous Catalysts: They are present in a
different phase from that of the reactants
• Of the two, heterogeneous catalysis has a much
greater economic impact
• A catalyzed reaction is faster (or in some cases
more specific) than an uncatalyzed version of the
same reaction because the catalyst provide a
different reaction pathway with a lower activation
energy

Catalyst efficiency
• Turnover frequency : Commonly called the
turnover number, N, and defined as molecules
reacting per active site in unit time.
• [or] The number of moles of substrate that a mole
of catalyst can convert before becoming
inactivated. An ideal catalyst would have an infinite
turnover number in this sense, because it wouldn't
ever be consumed, but in actual practice one often
sees turnover numbers which go from 100 to a
million or more.
 Q
A  B

 (rate) = d[B]/dt

The turnover frequency, N is given by

N =  /[Q]

A highly active catalyst results in a fast reaction

even in low concentrations and has a large
turnover frequency
Catalytic Cycles
• The essence of catalysis is a cycle of reactions
that consumes the reactants, forms products
and regenerates the catalytic species
• The catalytic cycle operates in the principle of
microscopic reversibility

Energetics
• A catalyst increases the rate of processes by
introducing new pathways with lower energies of
Activation
Gibbs energy profile of
a catalyzed reaction
contains no high peaks
and no deep troughs

In a catalyzed reaction,
no stable or non-labile
catalytic intermediates
are formed (shown by
blue line)

The product must be

released in a
thermodynamically
favorable step
Desired Properties of Catalysts
(i) Selectivity
• A selectivity catalyst yields a high proportion of the
desired product with minimum amounts of side product.
In industry there is considerable economic incentive to
develop selective catalysts

(b) Lifetime
• A small amount of catalyst must survive through a large
number of cycles of it is to be economically viable

• A catalyst may be destroyed by side reactions to the

main catalytic cycle by the presence of small amounts of
impurities in the starting material.

• For example, many alkene polymerization catalysts are

destroyed by O2, so these polymerizations are carried
out in absence of air
 Homogeneous Heterogeneous

Form Soluble metal complexes Metals, usually

(usually mononuclear) supported or oxide

Phase Liquid Solid/liquid; Solid/gas

Temperature Low (< 250 oC) High (250-500 oC)

Activity Moderate High

Selectivity High Low

Diffusion Facile Can be very important

 Homogeneous Heterogeneous

Heat transfer Facile Can be problematic

Product Liquid Facile

separation

Catalyst recycle Expensive Simple

Reaction Reasonably Well understood Poorly Understood

Mechanism
Homogeneous Catalysis - Catalytic Steps

(a) Ligand coordination and dissociation: Catalysis

steps often requires facile coordination of reactants to
metal ions and equally facile loss of products. Both
processes must occur with low Activation Energy. For
this purpose, highly labile complexes are needed as they
are coordinatively unsaturated (having an open
coordination site or being weakly coordinated)

Square-planar 16-electron complexes are

coordinatively unsaturated
ML4 complexes of Pd(II), Pt(II) and Rh(I)
[RhCl(PPh3)3] – hydrogenation catalyst
 (b) Insertion and elimination: The migration of alkyl and
hydride ligands to unsaturated ligands (Migratory
insertion)

R R H CH2
R
M CO M M CH2CH3
L + M C
CH2
O

The reverse of insertion is elimination (β-hydrogen elimination)

H CH2
b
M CH2CH3 M CH2
a

H H CH2
-C2H4
M sol M
+ sol CH2
(c) Nucleophilic attack on coordinated ligands: The
coordination of ligands (CO, alkenes) to metals in
positive oxidation states results in the activation of
coordinated C atoms towards attack by nucleophile.
2+ +
H R H R
C +
PdL3 PdL3 C C OH + H
C OH2
R R R R

e.g. Stereochemical evidence indicates that the reaction

occurs by direct attack on the most highly substituted C
atom of the coordinated olefin.
Similarly a coordinated CO ligand is attacked by an OH- ion
at the C atom forming –CO(OH) ligand
_
O
L5M CO + OH- L5M C OH L5M H + CO2
(d) Oxidative addition and reductive elimination: Oxidative
addition of a molecule AX to a complex brings about
dissociation of the A – X bond and coordination of the two
fragments
L A L
L M L + AX L M X
L
L L
Reductive elimination is the reverse of oxidative addition and
often follows it in a catalytic cycle
The mechanisms of oxidative additions can vary depending upon reaction conditions
and the nature of the reactants
• concerted reaction
• heterolytic (ionic) addition of A+ and X-
• radical addition of A and X
• Despite diversity of mechanism, the rates of oxidative addition of alkyl halides
• primary alkyl < secondary alkyl < tertiary alkyl < F < Cl < Br < I
• Principle of Microscopic Reversibility
• If a certain series of steps constitutes the
mechanism of a forward reaction, the
mechanism of the reverse reaction is given by
the same steps traversed backwards. (applies
only to thermal reactions and not-photochemical
reactions)
• The sequence of transition states and relative
intermediates in the mechanism of a reversible
reaction must be the same but in reverse order
for the backward reaction as for the forward
reaction
 R
C C Oxidative addition
H
H L L
Rh H2
Reductive
elimination Cl L
16-electron
L = PPh3 H
H L H
L C Rh
Rh C L
Cl
Cl L
L LH
Dissociation
Coordination L
H
H L H
L Rh Coordinatively
Rh C Cl L unsaturated
Cl C complex
L H
H
Hydrogen L H
migration Rh
C C
Cl L R
C C

Alkene complex
• Wilkinson’s catalyst
• Useful for the hydrogenation of a wide variety of
alkenes at pressure of hydrogen close to 1 atm
or less
•
Wilkinson’s catalyst is highly sensitive to the
nature of phosphine ligand and alkene substrate
•
Analogous alkyl phosphine ligands are inactive
because they are strongly bound to the metal
and do not readily dissociate
• Hydroformylation
• Co and Rh are employed as catalysts
• Aldehydes produced by hydroformylation
are normally reduced to alcohols that are
used as solvents, plasticizers and in the
synthesis of detergents
•
• The scale of production is enormous
amounting to millions of tones per year
 CO substrate binding
H
H 2C CHCH2CH3
H
Co CO
OC CO
OC
product Co CO
release CO H2C CHCH2CH3
CO
H
CH2CH2CH2CH3
Co CO
C OC
O
H O C CH2CH2CH2CH3 CO
OC CO Hydride insertion
Co CO
CH2CH2CH2CH3
CO CO
OC CO
Co
CO CO
CO
migratory
insertion