Abstract

Our overall goal of our project was to map susceptibility for nucleophilic attack on a series of metal-olefin compounds as a function of their geometry. The scope of this paper, however, is directed toward stabilizing our reactants in solution and the developing methods to test the reaction. In order to measure the susceptibility on the series we must know three things: the initial concentration of the nucleophile and the metal-olefin as well as a way measure the rate of reaction. In order to take these measurements, the solvent used must not interact with either reactant, must not interfere with the GC measurement of the nucleophile, and must not interfere with the UV/Vis absorption used to measure the metal-olefin concentration and the rate of reaction.

The nucleophile and metal-olefin used in our stabilization study was triethylamine (TEA) and {[C₅H₅Fe(CO)₂]CH₂CHNHC₆H₄Cl}⁺ BF₄^-. The four solvents used in our study were nitromethane, N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), tetrahydrofuran, and dichloroethane. Nitromethane showed to react with TEA so it was abandoned as a suitable solvent for our project. In the UV/Vis absorption of the metal-olefin in NMP, the solvent and metal-olefin had overlapping absorption. In THF, the TEA could not be fully separated from THF in GC while the metal-olefin showed to react in THF as well. In DCE we obtained a good calibration curve for the nucleophile, TEA. We observed a slow decomposition of the metal olefin complex in this solvent and ran an initial kinetic analysis to search for the nature of this decomposition. Once the source of the decay is determined proper kinetics measurements should ensure.