A New Way to Scorpionate Niobium Complexes: Terminal Alkyne, Imido, and Oxo Complexes and the Rearrangement of α-Agostic Ethyl Complexes

Molecular Niobium Precursors in Various Oxidation States: An XAS Case Study

Although X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) has become an indispensable tool in characterization of solid-state materials, it is less of a staple in molecular chemistry of niobium. Scattering X-ray techniques remain relatively unexplored for the systematic study of molecular niobium compounds. Here, we use XAS to probe the niobium environment in commonly used Nb precursors in +V, +IV, and +III oxidation states. Apart from laying out the guidelines for identification of niobium oxidation states, we correlate our data with density functional theory models to provide further structural insight. Of particular note, we are able to shed light on the nature of the commonly used and catalytically competent NbCl₃(DME), which had not been previously characterized structurally despite its prevalence in Nb chemistry.

Alkyl chlorido hydridotris(3,5-dimethylpyrazolyl)borate imido niobium and tantalum(V) complexes: synthesis, conformational states of alkyl groups in solid and solution, X-ray diffraction and multinuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies

The alkylation of the starting pseudooctahedral dichlorido imido hydridotris(3,5-dimethylpyrazolyl)borate niobium and tantalum(v) compounds [MTp*Cl2(NtBu)] (M = Nb,Ta; Tp* = BH(3,5-Me2C3HN2)3) with MgClR in different conditions led to new alkyl chlorido imido derivatives [MTp*ClR(NtBu)] (M = Nb/Ta, R = CH2CH31a/1b, CH2Ph 2a/2b, CH2tBu 3a/3b, CH2SiMe34a/4b, CH2CMe2Ph 5a/5b), whereas the dimethyl derivatives [MTp*Me2(NtBu)] (M = Nb 6a, Ta 6b) could be isolated as unitary species when the reaction was carried out using 2 equivalents of the magnesium reagent MgClMe. However, the chlorido methyl [MTp*ClMe(NtBu)] (M = Nb 7a, Ta 7b) complexes were obtained by heating at 50 °C the dichlorido and dimethyl imido complexes mixtures in a 1 : 1 ratio. All of the complexes were studied by multinuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and the molecular structures of 1b, 2a/b, 3a/b, 4a and 5a/b were determined by X-ray diffraction methods. In the solid state the complexes 1b, 4a and 5a exhibit only a gauche-anti conformation and the complexes 2a/b, 3a/b and 5b exhibit only a gauche-syn conformation of the alkyl substituents, whereas both conformational states, which do not show mutual exchange in the NMR time scale, were observed for 3a/b in a benzene-d6 solution. The (15)N chemical shifts of the complexes 1-7 are discussed.