In coordination chemistry and catalysis hemilability ( hemi - half, lability - a susceptibility to change) refers to a property of many polydentate ligands which contain at least two electronically different coordinating groups, such as hard and soft donors. These hybrid or heteroditopic ligands form complexes where one coordinating group is easily displaced from the metal centre while the other group remains firmly bound; a behaviour which has been found to increase the reactivity of catalysts when compared to the use of more traditional ligands. [1] [2]
In general, catalytic cycles can be divided into 3 stages:
Traditionally the focus of catalytic research has been on the reaction taking place in the second stage, however there will be energy changes associated with the beginning and end steps due to their effect on the coordination sphere and geometry of the complex, as well as its oxidation number in cases of oxidative addition and reductive elimination. When these energy changes are large they can dictate the turn-over rate of the catalyst and hence its effectiveness.
Hemilabile ligands reduce the activation energy of these changes by readily undergoing partial and reversible displacement from the metal centre. Hence a co-ordinately saturated hemilabile complex will readily reorganise to allow the coordination of reagents but will also promote the ejection of products due to re-coordination of the labile section of the ligand. The low energy barrier between the fully and hemi coordinated states results in frequent inverconvertion between the two, which promotes a fast catalytic turn-over rate.
Hemilabile ligands dissociate in one of three main ways; an "on/off" mechanism where they are constantly dissociating and re-associating, a displacement mechanism where they dissociate easily when exposed to a competing substrate, or redox switching where the oxidation state of the ligand is used to tune its affinity for the metal center. [3] [4]
Reductive elimination is an elementary step in organometallic chemistry in which the oxidation state of the metal center decreases while forming a new covalent bond between two ligands. It is the microscopic reverse of oxidative addition, and is often the product-forming step in many catalytic processes. Since oxidative addition and reductive elimination are reverse reactions, the same mechanisms apply for both processes, and the product equilibrium depends on the thermodynamics of both directions.
Wilkinson's catalyst (chloridotris(triphenylphosphine)rhodium(I)) is a coordination complex of rhodium with the formula [RhCl(PPh3)], where 'Ph' denotes a phenyl group. It is a red-brown colored solid that is soluble in hydrocarbon solvents such as benzene, and more so in tetrahydrofuran or chlorinated solvents such as dichloromethane. The compound is widely used as a catalyst for hydrogenation of alkenes. It is named after chemist and Nobel laureate Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson, who first popularized its use.
In chemistry, a transition metal pincer complex is a type of coordination complex with a pincer ligand. Pincer ligands are chelating agents that binds tightly to three adjacent coplanar sites in a meridional configuration. The inflexibility of the pincer-metal interaction confers high thermal stability to the resulting complexes. This stability is in part ascribed to the constrained geometry of the pincer, which inhibits cyclometallation of the organic substituents on the donor sites at each end. In the absence of this effect, cyclometallation is often a significant deactivation process for complexes, in particular limiting their ability to effect C-H bond activation. The organic substituents also define a hydrophobic pocket around the reactive coordination site. Stoichiometric and catalytic applications of pincer complexes have been studied at an accelerating pace since the mid-1970s. Most pincer ligands contain phosphines. Reactions of metal-pincer complexes are localized at three sites perpendicular to the plane of the pincer ligand, although in some cases one arm is hemi-labile and an additional coordination site is generated transiently. Early examples of pincer ligands were anionic with a carbanion as the central donor site and flanking phosphine donors; these compounds are referred to as PCP pincers.
The Pauson–Khand (PK) reaction is a chemical reaction, described as a [2+2+1] cycloaddition. In it, an alkyne, an alkene, and carbon monoxide combine into a α,β-cyclopentenone in the presence of a metal-carbonyl catalyst Ihsan Ullah Khand (1935–1980) discovered the reaction around 1970, while working as a postdoctoral associate with Peter Ludwig Pauson (1925–2013) at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Pauson and Khand's initial findings were intermolecular in nature, but the reaction has poor selectivity. Some modern applications instead apply the reaction for intramolecular ends.
The Meerwein–Ponndorf–Verley (MPV) reduction in organic chemistry is the reduction of ketones and aldehydes to their corresponding alcohols utilizing aluminium alkoxide catalysis in the presence of a sacrificial alcohol. The advantages of the MPV reduction lie in its high chemoselectivity and its use of a cheap environmentally friendly metal catalyst. MPV reductions have been described as "obsolete" owing to the development of sodium borohydride and related reagents.
Dicobalt octacarbonyl is an organocobalt compound with composition Co2(CO)8. This metal carbonyl is used as a reagent and catalyst in organometallic chemistry and organic synthesis, and is central to much known organocobalt chemistry. It is the parent member of a family of hydroformylation catalysts. Each molecule consists of two cobalt atoms bound to eight carbon monoxide ligands, although multiple structural isomers are known. Some of the carbonyl ligands are labile.
Bis(oxazoline) ligands (often abbreviated BOX ligands) are a class of privileged chiral ligands containing two oxazoline rings. They are typically C2‑symmetric and exist in a wide variety of forms; with structures based around CH2 or pyridine linkers being particularly common (often generalised BOX and PyBOX respectively). The coordination complexes of bis(oxazoline) ligands are used in asymmetric catalysis. These ligands are examples of C2-symmetric ligands.
Asymmetric hydrogenation is a chemical reaction that adds two atoms of hydrogen to a target (substrate) molecule with three-dimensional spatial selectivity. Critically, this selectivity does not come from the target molecule itself, but from other reagents or catalysts present in the reaction. This allows spatial information to transfer from one molecule to the target, forming the product as a single enantiomer. The chiral information is most commonly contained in a catalyst and, in this case, the information in a single molecule of catalyst may be transferred to many substrate molecules, amplifying the amount of chiral information present. Similar processes occur in nature, where a chiral molecule like an enzyme can catalyse the introduction of a chiral centre to give a product as a single enantiomer, such as amino acids, that a cell needs to function. By imitating this process, chemists can generate many novel synthetic molecules that interact with biological systems in specific ways, leading to new pharmaceutical agents and agrochemicals. The importance of asymmetric hydrogenation in both academia and industry contributed to two of its pioneers — William Standish Knowles and Ryōji Noyori — being collectively awarded one half of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Oxazoline is a five-membered heterocyclic organic compound with the formula C3H5NO. It is the parent of a family of compounds called oxazolines, which contain non-hydrogenic substituents on carbon and/or nitrogen. Oxazolines are the unsaturated analogues of oxazolidines, and they are isomeric with isoxazolines, where the N and O are directly bonded. Two isomers of oxazoline are known, depending on the location of the double bond.
Organogold chemistry is the study of compounds containing gold–carbon bonds. They are studied in academic research, but have not received widespread use otherwise. The dominant oxidation states for organogold compounds are I with coordination number 2 and a linear molecular geometry and III with CN = 4 and a square planar molecular geometry.
Organorhodium chemistry is the chemistry of organometallic compounds containing a rhodium-carbon chemical bond, and the study of rhodium and rhodium compounds as catalysts in organic reactions.
In chemistry, metal-catalysed hydroboration is a reaction used in organic synthesis. It is one of several examples of homogeneous catalysis.
The Weak-Link Approach (WLA) is a supramolecular coordination-based assembly methodology, first introduced in 1998 by the Mirkin Group at Northwestern University. This method takes advantage of hemilabile ligands -ligands that contain both strong and weak binding moieties- that can coordinate to metal centers and quantitatively assemble into a single condensed ‘closed’ structure. Unlike other supramolecular assembly methods, the WLA allows for the synthesis of supramolecular complexes that can be modulated from rigid ‘closed’ structures to flexible ‘open’ structures through reversible binding of allosteric effectors at the structural metal centers. The approach is general and has been applied to a variety of metal centers and ligand designs including those with utility in catalysis and allosteric regulation.
In Lewis acid catalysis of organic reactions, a metal-based Lewis acid acts as an electron pair acceptor to increase the reactivity of a substrate. Common Lewis acid catalysts are based on main group metals such as aluminum, boron, silicon, and tin, as well as many early and late d-block metals. The metal atom forms an adduct with a lone-pair bearing electronegative atom in the substrate, such as oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and halogens. The complexation has partial charge-transfer character and makes the lone-pair donor effectively more electronegative, activating the substrate toward nucleophilic attack, heterolytic bond cleavage, or cycloaddition with 1,3-dienes and 1,3-dipoles.
Phosphinooxazolines are a class of chiral ligands used in asymmetric catalysis. Colorless solids, PHOX ligands feature a tertiary phosphine group, often diphenyl, and an oxazoline ligand in the ortho position. The oxazoline, which carries the stereogenic center, coordinates through nitrogen, the result being that PHOX ligands are P,N-chelating ligands. Most phosphine ligands used in asymmetric catalysis are diphosphines, so the PHOX ligands are distinctive. Some evidence exists that PHOX ligands are hemilabile.
Trisoxazolines are a class of tridentate, chiral ligands composed of three oxazoline rings. Despite being neutral they are able to form stable complexes with high oxidation state metals, such as rare earths, due to the chelate effect. The ligands have been investigated for molecular recognition and their complexes are used in asymmetric catalysts and polymerisation.
The Kharasch–Sosnovsky reaction is a method that involves using a copper or cobalt salt as a catalyst to oxidize olefins at the allylic position, subsequently condensing a peroxy ester or a peroxide resulting in the formation of allylic benzoates or alcohols via radical oxidation. This method is noteworthy for being the first allylic functionalization to utilize first-row transition metals and has found numerous applications in chemical and total synthesis. Chiral ligands can be used to render the reaction asymmetric, constructing chiral C–O bonds via C–H bond activation. This is notable as asymmetric addition to allylic groups tends to be difficult due to the transition state being highly symmetric. The reaction is named after Morris S. Kharasch and George Sosnovsky who first reported it in 1958. This method is noteworthy for being the first allylic functionalization to utilize first-row transition metals and has found numerous applications in chemical and total synthesis.
Cobalt(II)–porphyrin catalysis is a process in which a Co(II) porphyrin complex acts as a catalyst, inducing and accelerating a chemical reaction.
In homogeneous catalysis, C2-symmetric ligands refer to ligands that lack mirror symmetry but have C2 symmetry. Such ligands are usually bidentate and are valuable in catalysis. The C2 symmetry of ligands limits the number of possible reaction pathways and thereby increases enantioselectivity, relative to asymmetrical analogues. C2-symmetric ligands are a subset of chiral ligands. Chiral ligands, including C2-symmetric ligands, combine with metals or other groups to form chiral catalysts. These catalysts engage in enantioselective chemical synthesis, in which chirality in the catalyst yields chirality in the reaction product.
Metal-ligand cooperativity (MLC) is a mode of reactivity in which a metal and ligand of a complex are both involved in the bond breaking or bond formation of a substrate during the course of a reaction. This ligand is an actor ligand rather than a spectator, and the reaction is generally only deemed to contain MLC if the actor ligand is doing more than leaving to provide an open coordination site. MLC is also referred to as "metal-ligand bifunctional catalysis." Note that MLC is not to be confused with cooperative binding.