ACTIVATION OF TRICOBALT CLUSTERS AND SYNTHESIS OF TRICOBALT CLUSTERS CONTAINING PHOSPHINE LIGANDS

A successful method of activation, in which trimethylamine oxide is used to activate the tricobalt carbonyl clusters at room temperature, has been reported in this paper. A series of tricobalt clusters containing monodentate phosphine ligand PPh_3 and bidentate phosphine ligand dppm (bis(diphenylphosphino)methane) have also been synthesized by making use of the quasi-coordinatively unsaturated clusters (μ_3-CR)Co_3(CO)_(9-n)(MeCN)_n(R=Me, Ph, H, Cl,n=1, 2). The structures of these clusters reported in this paper have been characterized by IR, NMR and MS.