Liquid injection field desorption ionization mass spectrometry of cyclic metal carbonyl complexes with tetra-antimony ligands.

Reactions of (norbornadiene)Cr(CO)(4) or cis-(piperidine)(2)Mo(CO)(4) with R(2)Sb-SbR(2), and cyclo-(R'Sb)(n) (R' = Et, n-Pr; n = 4, 5) give the complexes cyclo-[M(CO)(4)(R(2)Sb-SbR'- SbR'-SbR(2))] (1: M = Cr, R = Me, R'= Et; 2: M = Mo, R = Et, R' = Et; 3: M = Mo, R = Et, R' = n-Pr). Not accessible to established characterization methods, the oily, extremely reactive unpurified mixture of 3 with scrambled ligands was characterized by mass spectrometry using liquid injection field desorption ionization (LIFDI).