Chalcogenide clusters of Groups 8–10 noble metals

Recent advances in atomic cluster synthesis: a perspective from chemical elements

Despite its potential significance, "cluster chemistry" remains a somewhat marginalized topic within the chemistry field. However, atomic clusters with their unusual and unique structures and properties represent a novel material group situated between molecules and nanoparticles or solid matter, judging from both scientific standpoints and historical backgrounds. Surveying an entire material group, including all substances that can be regarded as a cluster, is essential for establishing cluster chemistry as a more prominent chemistry field. This review aims to provide a comprehensive understanding by categorizing, summarizing, and reviewing clusters, focusing on their constituent elements in the periodic table. However, because numerous disparate synthetic processes have been individually developed to date, their straightforward and uniform classification is a challenging task. As such, comprehensively reviewing this field from a chemical composition viewpoint presents significant obstacles. It should be therefore noted that despite adopting a synthetic method-based classification in this review, the discussions presented herein could entail inaccuracies. Nevertheless, this unorthodox viewpoint unfolds a new scientific perspective which accentuates the common ground between different development processes by emphasizing the lack of a definitive border between their synthetic methods and material groups, thus opening new avenues for cementing cluster chemistry as an attractive chemistry field.

Keep it tight: a crucial role of bridging phosphine ligands in the design and optical properties of multinuclear coinage metal complexes

Copper subgroup metal ions in the +1 oxidation state are classical candidates for aggregation via non-covalent metal-metal interactions, which are supported by a number of bridging ligands. The bridging phosphines, soft donors with a relatively labile coordination to coinage metals, serve as convenient and essential components of the ligand environment that allow for efficient self-assembly of discrete polynuclear aggregates. Simultaneously, accessible and rich modification of the organic spacer of such P-donors has been used to generate many fascinating structures with attractive photoluminescent behavior. In this work we consider the development of di- and polynuclear complexes of M(i) (M = Cu, Ag, Au) and their photophysical properties, focusing on the effect of phosphine bridging ligands, their flexibility and denticity.

A Sterically Hindered Derivative of 2,1,3-Benzotelluradiazole: A Way to the First Structurally Characterised Monomeric Tellurium-Nitrogen Radical Anion

Interaction of the tetradentate redox-active 6,6'-[1,2-phenylenebis(azanediyl)]bis(2,4-di-tert-butylphenol) (H₄ L) with TeCl₄ leads to neutral diamagnetic compound TeL (1) in high yield. The molecule of 1 has a nearly planar TeN₂ O₂ fragment, which suggests the formulation of 1 as Te^II L^2- , in agreement with the results of DFT calculations and QTAIM and NBO analyses. Reduction of 1 with one equivalent of [CoCp₂ ] leads to quantitative formation of the paramagnetic salt [CoCp₂ ]⁺ [1]^.- , which was characterised by single-crystal XRD. The solution EPR spectrum of [CoCp₂ ]⁺ [1]^.- at room temperature features a quintet due to splitting on two equivalent ¹⁴ N nuclei. Below 150 K it turns into a broad singlet line with two weak satellites due to the splitting on the ¹²⁵ Te nucleus. Two-component relativistic DFT calculations perfectly reproduce the a(¹⁴ N) HFI constants and A_∥ (¹²⁵ Te) value responsible for the low-temperature satellite splitting. Calculations predict that the additional electron in 1^.- is localised mainly on L, while the spin density is delocalised over the whole molecule with significant localisation on the Te atom (≥30 %). All these data suggest that 1^.- can be regarded as the first example of a structurally characterised monomeric tellurium-nitrogen radical anion.

Templated syntheses of heterometal tungsten-cobalt-sulfur clusters with different nuclearities

A series of new W-Co-S clusters have been synthesized utilizing the complex [Et₄N][(Tp*)WS₃] (Tp* = hydridotris(3,5-dimethylpyrazol-1-yl)borate(1-)) as the synthetic template, by rational control of the stoichiometry of reactants and by employment of a reductant or precipitant as an auxiliary reagent. By solubility control or addition of a precipitant to avoid the involvement of Cl^- in the reaction, the cluster [(Tp*)WS₃]₂Co (2) could be obtained. With different ratios of the Co source to the template, together with the use of an appropriate amount of reducing reagent, clusters [{(Tp*)WS₃}₂Co]^1- (3) and [{(Tp*)WS₃}₂Co₂Cl]^1- (4) could be synthesized as their Et₄N⁺ salts, and [{(Tp*)WS₃}₂Co₄Cl₂(DMF)]^1- (5) could be isolated as its [Co(DMF)₆]²⁺ salt. A common structural feature of these clusters is that they all have a pair of [(Tp*)WS₃] templates chelating different numbers of Co atoms to form W-Co-S clusters with distinct nuclearities. The clusters [(Tp*)WS₃]₂Co (2) and [{(Tp*)WS₃}₂Co]^1- (3) both have one Co atom chelated by two [(Tp*)WS₃] templates, and the difference lies in not only the oxidation states but also the fact that the Co atom in 2 adopts an octahedral coordination environment while that in 3 bears a tetrahedral coordination sphere, which means that the [(Tp*)WS₃] template is tri-dentate in 2 and bi-dentate in 3. The cluster [{(Tp*)WS₃}₂Co₂Cl]^1- (4) has two Co atoms chelated by a pair of [(Tp*)WS₃] templates, in which one of the Co atoms is also terminally bound by a Cl^- ligand. There are four Co atoms chelated by two [(Tp*)WS₃] templates in the cluster [{(Tp*)WS₃}₂Co₄Cl₂(DMF)]^1- (5), two of which are bound terminally by the Cl^- ligands. Studies of redox properties by cyclic voltammetry indicate the existence of two reversible redox pairs related to clusters 2 and 3, respectively.

Mechanisms of the S/CO/Se interchange reactions at FeMo-co, the active site cluster of nitrogenase

The active site of the N2 fixing enzyme nitrogenase is a C-centred Fe7MoS cluster (FeMo-co) containing a trigonal prism of six Fe atoms connected by a central belt of three doubly-bridging S atoms. The trigonal faces of the prism are capped via triply-bridging S atoms to Fe1 at one end and Mo at the other end. One of the central belt atoms, S2B, considered to be important in the chemical mechanism of the enzyme, has been shown by Spatzal, Rees et al. to undergo substitution by CO, and also substitution by Se in the presence of SeCN(-), under turnover conditions. Further, when turning over under C2H2 or N2/CO there is migration of Se to the other two belt bridging positions. These reactions are extraordinary, and unprecedented in metal chalcogenide cluster chemistry. Using density functional simulations, mechanisms for all of these reactions have been developed, involving the small molecules SCO, SeCO, C2H2S, C2H2Se, SeCN(-), SCN(-) functioning as carriers of S and Se atoms. The possibility that the S2B bridge position is vacant is discounted, because the barrier to formation of a bridge-void intermediate with two contiguous three-coordinate Fe atoms is too large. A bridging ligand is retained throughout the proposed mechanisms. Intermediates with Fe-C(O)-S/Se-Fe cycles and with SCO/SeCO C-bound to Fe are predicted. The energetics of the reaction trajectories show them to be feasible and easily reversible, consistent with experiment. Alternative mechanisms involving intramolecular differential rotatory rearrangements of the cluster to scramble the Se bridges are also examined, and shown to be very unlikely. The implications of these new facets of the reactivity of the FeMo-co cluster are discussed: it is considered that they are unlikely to be part of the mechanism of the physiological reactions of nitrogenase.

Unexpected explanation for the enigmatic acid-catalysed reactivity of [Fe4S4X4](2-) clusters

Density functional calculations show that Fe-S clusters undergo unexpected large structural changes when protonated at S. Protonation of prototypical cubanoid [Fe4S4X4](2-) to [Fe4S3(SH)X4](-) (X = Cl, SR, OR) results in formation of doubly-bridging SH, severance of one Fe-S bond, and creation of a three-coordinate Fe. These findings explain previously enigmatic results concerning the reactivity of these clusters, including the rates of protonation, pKa data, and the kinetics of acid-catalysed ligand substitution.

Ir(2-phenylpyridine)2(benzene-1,2-dithiolate) anion as a diastereoselective metalloligand and nucleophile: stereoelectronic effect, spectroscopy, and computational study of the methylated and aurated complexes and their oxygenation products

The anionic complex [Ir(2-phenylpyridine)2(benzene-1,2-dithiolate)](-) ([IrSS](-)) is a nucleophile and metalloligand that reacts with methyl iodide and AuPR3(+) (R = Ph or Et) to form S-methylated complexes (thiother-thiolate and dithiother complexes) and S-aurated complexes, respectively. The reactions are completely diastereselective, producing only the enantiomers ΛS and ΔR or ΛSS and ΔRR. The diastereoselectivity is stereoelectronically controlled by the orientation of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of [IrSS](-) arising from filled dπ-pπ antibonding interactions, and the chirality of the iridium ion. Methylation or auration removes the high-energy lone pair of the thiolate S atom, leading to low-lying HOMOs composed mainly of the Ir d-orbital and the 2-phenylpyridine π (ppyπ) orbital. The methylated and aurated complexes can be oxidized by H2O2 or peracid to give sulfinate-thiother, disulfoxide, and sulfinate-sulfoxide complexes, and the oxygenation further stabilizes the HOMO. All the complexes are luminescent, and their electronic spectra are interpreted with the aid of time-dependent density functional theory calculations. The thiother-thiolate complex exhibits ligand(S)-to-ligand(π* of ppy)-charge-transfer/metal-to-ligand-charge-transfer absorption (LLCT/MLCT) and a relatively low-energy (3)LLCT/MLCT emission, while the other complexes display (3)ππ*/MLCT emissions.

Synthesis, crystal structure, and optical characteristics of [Pd2Hg4Cl6{Te(DMB)}6]·2DMF, [HgClTe(DMB)]4, and the ring-forming cluster [Pd12(TePh)24]·2DMF

Exploring the use of metal organo chalcogenolates to achieve the rational growth of cluster complexes.

Trigonal-bipyramidal and square-pyramidal chromium-manganese chalcogenide clusters, [E2CrMn2(CO)n](2-) (E=S, Se, Te; n=9, 10): synthesis, electrochemistry, UV/Vis absorption, and computational studies

The reactions of E powder (E=S, Se) with a mixture of Cr(CO)6 and Mn2(CO)10 in concentrated solutions of KOH/MeOH produced two new mixed Cr-Mn-carbonyl clusters, [E2CrMn2(CO)9](2-) (E=S, 1; Se, 2). Clusters 1 and 2 were isostructural with one another and each displayed a trigonal-bipyramidal structure, with the CrMn2 triangle axially capped by two μ3-E atoms. The analogous telluride cluster, [Te2CrMn2(CO)9](2-) (3), was obtained from the ring-closure of Te2Mn2 ring complex [Te2Mn2Cr2(CO)18](2-) (4). Upon bubbling with CO, clusters 2 and 3 were readily converted into square-pyramidal clusters, [E2CrMn2(CO)10](2-) (E=Se, 5; Te, 6), accompanied with the cleavage of one Cr-Mn bond. According to SQUID analysis, cluster 6 was paramagnetic, with S=1 at room temperature; however, the Se analogue (5) was spectroscopically proposed to be diamagnetic, as verified by TD-DFT calculations. Cluster 6 could be further carbonylated, with cleavage of the Mn-Mn bond to produce a new arachno-cluster, [Te2CrMn2(CO)11](2-) (7). The formation and structural isomers, as well as electrochemistry and UV/Vis absorption, of these clusters were also elucidated by DFT calculations.