Scandium carbene complexes: Synthesis of mixed alkyl, amido, and phosphido derivatives

Abstract

Different synthetic strategies are proposed to obtain a family of scandium carbene complexes. Starting either from scandium trichloride, scandium trisbenzyl, or the known scandium bis(diphenylthiophosphinoyl)methanediide chloride complex 1, the homoleptic bis-carbene complex [Sc{C(PPh2S)2}2Li(THF)2] (3), the alkyl-carbene complex [Sc{C(PPh2S)2}{CH(PPh2S)2}(THF)] (5), the amido-carbene complex [Sc{C(PPh2S)2}{N(SiMe3)2}(THF)] (7), and the phosphido-carbene complex [Sc{C(PPh2S)2}{P(SiMe3)2}(Py)2] (8) were obtained. The influence of the nature of the anionic ligand in trans position to the carbene ligand on the geometries at Sc was probed by DFT calculations in the case of complexes 7 and 8.