Reactions of Late First-Row Transition Metal (Fe-Zn) Dichlorides with a PGeP Pincer Germylene

The reactivity of the PGeP germylene 2,2’-bis(di-isopropylphosphanylmethyl)-5,5’-dimethyldipyrromethane-1,1’-diylgermanium(II), Ge(pyrmPiPr₂)₂CMe₂, with late first-row transition metal (Fe-Zn) dichlorides has been investigated. All reactions led to PGeP pincer chloridogermyl complexes. The reactions with FeCl₂ and CoCl₂ afforded paramagnetic square planar complexes of formula [MCl{κ³P,Ge,P-GeCl(pyrmPiPr₂)₂CMe₂}] (M=Fe, Co). While the iron complex maintained an intermediate spin state (S¹; μ_eff=3.0 μ_B) over the temperature range 50–380 K, the effective magnetic moment of the cobalt complex varied linearly with temperature from 1.9 μ_B at 10 K to 3.6 μ_B at 380 K, indicating a spin crossover behavior that involves S^1/2 (predominant at T<180 K) and S^3/2 (predominant at T>200 K) species. Both cobalt(II) species were detected by electron paramagnetic resonance at T<20 K. The reaction of Ge(pyrmPiPr₂)₂CMe₂ with [NiCl₂(dme)] (dme=dimethoxyethane) gave a square planar nickel(II) complex, [NiCl{κ³P,Ge,P-GeCl(pyrmPiPr₂)₂CMe₂}], whereas the reaction with CuCl₂ involved a redox process that rendered a mixture of the germanium(IV) compound GeCl₂(pyrmPiPr₂)₂CMe₂ and a binuclear copper(I) complex, [Cu₂{μ-κ³P,Ge,P-GeCl(pyrmPiPr₂)₂CMe₂}₂], whose metal atoms are in tetrahedral environments. The reaction of the germylene with ZnCl₂ led to the tetrahedral derivative [ZnCl{κ³P,Ge,P-GeCl(pyrmPiPr₂)₂CMe₂}].