Exploring Equilibria between Aluminium(I) and Aluminium(III): The Formation of Dihydroalanes, Masked Dialumenes and Aluminium(I) Species.

ABSTRACT: The design of new reductive routes to low oxidation state aluminium (Al) compounds offers the opportunity to better understand redox processes at the metal centre and develop reactivity accordingly. Here, a monomeric Al^I compound acts as a stoichiometric reducing agent towards a series of Al^III dihydrides, leading to the formation of new low oxidation state species including symmetric and asymmetric dihydrodialanes, and a masked dialumene. These compounds are formed by a series of equilibrium processes involving Al^I , Al^II and Al^III species and product formation can be manipulated by fine-tuning the reaction conditions. The transient formation of monomeric Al^I compounds is proposed: this is shown to be energetically viable by computational (DFT) investigations and reactivity studies show support for the formation of Al^I species. Importantly, despite the potential for the equilibrium mixtures to lead to ill-defined reactivity, controlled reactivity of these low oxidation state species is observed.

SUBMITTER: Bakewell C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9401008 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature