Prospects for three-electron donor boronyl (BO) ligands and dioxodiborene (B2O2) ligands as bridging groups in binuclear iron carbonyl derivatives.

Recent experimental work (2010) on (Cy(3)P)(2)Pt(BO)Br indicates that the oxygen atom of the boronyl (BO) ligand is more basic than that in the ubiquitous CO ligand. This suggests that bridging BO ligands in unsaturated binuclear metal carbonyl derivatives should readily function as three-electron donor bridging ligands involving both the oxygen and the boron atoms. In this connection, density functional theory shows that three of the four lowest energy singlet Fe(2)(BO)(2)(CO)(7) structures have such a bridging η(2)-μ-BO group as well as a formal Fe-Fe single bond. In addition, all four of the lowest energy singlet Fe(2)(BO)(2)(CO)(6) structures have two bridging η(2)-μ-BO groups and formal Fe-Fe single bonds. Other Fe(2)(BO)(2)(CO)(n) (n = 7, 6) structures are found in which the two BO groups have coupled to form a bridging dioxodiborene (B(2)O(2)) ligand with B-B bonding distances of ~1.84 Å. All of these Fe(2)(μ-B(2)O(2))(CO)(n) structures have long Fe···Fe distances indicating a lack of direct iron-iron bonding. One of the singlet Fe(2)(BO)(2)(CO)(7) structures has such a bridging dioxodiborene ligand with cis stereochemistry functioning as a six-electron donor to the pair of iron atoms. In addition, the lowest energy triplet structures for both Fe(2)(BO)(2)(CO)(7) and Fe(2)(BO)(2)(CO)(6) have bridging dioxodiborene ligands with trans stereochemistry functioning as a four-electron donor to the pair of iron atoms.