A Theoretical Study of the Reductive Elimination of CH3EH3 from cis‐[Pt(CH3)(EH3)(PH3)2] (E = Si,Ge) in the Presence of Acetylene

The reaction mechanism of the elimination of CH₃EH₃ from the platinum complexes cis‐[Pt(CH₃) · (EH₃)(PH₃)₂] (E = Si, Ge) in the presence of acetylene has been studied using gradient‐corrected DFT calculations at the B3LYP level. The reaction proceeds in two steps. The first step is the formation of the acetylene complex [Pt(CH₃)(HCCH)(EH₃)(PH₃)] which occurs in a associative/dissociate pathway via the five‐coordinated intermediate [Pt(CH₃)(HCCH)(EH₃)(PH₃)₂]. The rate‐determining step is the elimination of CH₃EH₃ via a four‐coordinated transition state. The alternative mechanism via direct dissociation from the five‐coordinated intermediates has higher activation barriers. The calculated activation energies of the model reactions are in good agreement with experimental results. The silyl complex has a lower barrier for the elimination reaction than the germyl complex. The calculated transition states show that the reason for the lower barrier is the strength of the nascending C–Si bond, which is higher than the C–Ge bond. The results are in agreement with the postulated mechanism of Ozawa et al. (Organometallics, 1998 , 17, 1018).