Unsaturated Metal Isocyanides: Molecules to Materials
Prof. Dr. Joshua Figueroa
University of California, San Diego
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Recent results concerning the construction and reactivity of low-coordinate transition-metal complexes featuring sterically encumbering m-terphenyl isocyanide ligands are presented. Given the isolobal relationship between organoisocyanides and carbon monoxide, these complexes serve as mimics of the unsaturated binary metal carbonyls. The latter have traditionally been studied in either the gas phase or by matrix-isolation techniques and, consequently, their condensed-phase reactivity patterns are largely unknown. Specifically addressed will be synthetic studies that have delivered homoleptic and heteroleptic isocyanide complexes that mimic several unsaturated binary carbonyls for the middle and late transition metals. The conversion of these reactive complexes into network materials is also discussed.