Reactivity of a Gold-Aluminyl Complex with Carbon Dioxide: A Nucleophilic Gold?

J Am Chem Soc. 2021 Sep 15;143(36):14433-14437. doi: 10.1021/jacs.1c06728. Epub 2021 Sep 2.

Abstract

A gold-aluminyl complex has been recently reported to feature an unconventional gold nucleophilic center, which was revealed through reactivity with carbon dioxide leading to the Au-CO2 coordination mode. In this work, we computationally investigate the reaction mechanism, which is found to be cooperative, with the gold-aluminum bond being the actual nucleophile and Al also behaving as electrophile. The Au-Al bond is shown to be mainly of an electron-sharing nature, with the two metal fragments displaying a diradical-like reactivity with CO2.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aluminum / chemistry*
  • Carbon Dioxide / chemistry*
  • Coordination Complexes / chemistry*
  • Density Functional Theory
  • Gold / chemistry*
  • Models, Chemical
  • Thermodynamics

Substances

  • Coordination Complexes
  • Carbon Dioxide
  • Gold
  • Aluminum