Side-On Coordination of Nitrous Oxide to a Mononuclear Cobalt Center.

Despite its utility as an oxygen-atom transfer reagent for transition metals, nitrous oxide (NO) is a notoriously poor ligand, and its coordination chemistry has been limited to a few terminal, end-on κ- complexes. Here, the synthesis of a mononuclear cobalt complex possessing a side-on-bound NO molecule is reported. Structural characterization, IR spectroscopy, and DFT calculations support an η- binding mode for binding of NO to the cobalt center.