Solvent dependent reactivity: solvent activation vs. solvent coordination in alkylphosphane iron complexes.

The pyridine-derived tetrapodal tetraphosphane C5H3N[CMe(CH2PMe2)2]2 is susceptible to selective protonolysis of a phosphorus-carbon bond in the presence of iron(II) salts. Water produces dimethylphosphinic acid, Me2POH, and protonates the anionic remainder of the tetraphosphane. The resulting iron(II) complexes and (tetrafluoroborate and perchlorate salts, respectively) contain the residual chelate ligand in which a methyl group, derived from the ligand skeleton, is in agostic interaction with the metal centre, and in which Me2POH, unavailable in the free state owing to rapid tautomerisation, is metal-coordinated and thus stabilised. Full NMR details are presented, including 31P simulations. The reactivity towards alcohols is similar (compounds), and has been studied using deuterium labels (NMR). P-C bond cleavage may be suppressed only if all protic agents are rigorously excluded, as in the reaction of with Fe(SO3CF3)2.2CH3CN in acetonitrile solution, which produces the complex [Fe(NCMe)](SO3CF3)2. In it, the ligand acts as an NP4 coordination cap but is severely distorted from square-pyramidal geometry. The reaction of with anhydrous ferrous bromide, FeBr2, in methanol again produces a dimethylphosphinic acid ester ligand, but the complex now contains ferric iron coordinated by a carbanionic residual chelate ligand, implicating H+ as the oxidising agent under these conditions. Full spectroscopic and X-ray structural details are presented for all compounds.