Calculations find that tunneling plays a major role in the reductive elimination of methane from hydridomethylbis(trimethylphosphine)platinum: how to confirm this computational prediction experimentally.

DFT calculations, including the effects of small curvature tunneling, have been performed on the reductive elimination of methane from hydridomethylbis(trimethylphosphine)platinum (1d). The calculations find that at 250 K tunneling results in an increase in the rate constant for reductive elimination by a factor of 4, a lowering of Ea by 1.7 kcal/mol, and a decrease in A by a factor of nearly 10. Tunneling is also calculated to increase the primary H/D kinetic isotope effect (KIE) from k(1d)/k(1f) = 2.26 to k(1d)/k(1f) = 4.12 and to result in a large secondary KIE of k(1d)/k(1e) = 1.35. In addition, tunneling is predicted to result in a violation of the rule of the geometric mean, so that the secondary KIE for reductive elimination of methane-d1 from 1f is calculated to be k(1f)/k(1g) = 1.06, which is much smaller than the secondary KIE of k(1d)/k(1e) = 1.35 for reductive elimination of methane from 1d. Comparison of the measured values of k(1d)/k(1e) and k(1f)/k(1g) is therefore proposed as an experimental test of the prediction that tunneling plays an important role in the reductive elimination of methane from 1d.