The modelling of nucleophilic and electrophilic additions to organometallic complexes using molecular graphics techniques.

A new formalism has been developed in order to evaluate intermolecular interaction energies for inorganic and organometallic complexes in the framework of the extended Hückel method. In order to provide the shortest possible response time on an interactive computer graphics facility, this model should require the minimum amount of computer time, which explains why approximate procedures are used to evaluate electrostatic, charge transfer and exchange repulsion components. When applying this model to typical examples of electrophilic addition reactions to organometallic complexes, it is found that it is essential to take account of charge transfer interactions, the electrostatic component alone being not sufficient, even qualitatively, for a proper description of the reaction mechanism. The results, presented as color-coded dot molecular surfaces, show a very good agreement with experiment as to the site of attack, namely (i) on metal for the electrophilic attack on Fe(cp)2, Fe(CO)5 and X(cp)(CO)2, X = Co, Rh; (ii) on the cp ligand for the nucleophilic attack on Co(cp)2+ and Rh(cp)2+; (iii) on bz for the nucleophilic attack on Fe(cp)(bz)+. Finally, modellizations of the nucleophilic attack on a coordinated olefin and of the relation between structure and acidic properties of zeolites are presented and discussed.