Chemistry

CHEMISTRY

BY MARYE ANNE FOX
Department of Chemistry
University of Texas, Austin
Austin, Tex.

" Alkoxide ligands, acting as pi donors to stabilize early transition metals in high oxidation states, and carbonyls, acting as pi acceptors to stabilize late transition elements in low oxidation states, provide complementary ligand effects to inorganic clusters. A recent article summarizes the effect of such ligands in controlling substrate binding; electronic saturation, and stenc control in organometallic reactions.

M.H. Chishoim, D.L. Clark, M.J. Hampden-Smith, D.H. Hoffman, “Alkoxide clusters of molybdenum and tungsten as templates for organometallic chemistry: comparison with carbonyl clusters of the later transition elements,” Angewandte Chemie, International Edition in English, 28, 432-44, April 1989. (Indiana University, Bloomington; Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M.; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.)

In the last several years, theory has moved beyond gas-phase quantum mechanics to provide a quantitatively meaningful picture of structure...