Approaches to trinuclear half-sandwich carbene complexes containing 1,2-dicarba-closo-dodecaboranes.

The synthesis of trinuclear half-sandwich iridium and rhodium complexes containing both N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) and 1,2-dicarba-closo-dodecaborane ligands is described. Complexes {CpM[E2C2(B10H10)]}3(L) (Cp=pentamethylcyclopentadienyl; L=tris(2-(3-methylimidazol-2-ylidene)ethyl)amine; M=Ir (), Rh (); E=S (), Se ()) were obtained from the reactions of CpM[E2C2(B10H10)] (M=Ir (), Rh ()) with a silver-NHC precursor or from the reactions of [CpMCl2]3(L) (M=Ir (), Rh ()) with Li2E2C2(B10H10) (E=S, Se). The complexes were characterized by IR, NMR spectroscopy, elemental analysis. In addition, X-ray structure analyses were performed on complexes and .