Organotransition-Metal-Mediated Borane-Cage Expansion

Attempts were made to synthesize dinuclear Group 6 metal complexes of the arachno -octahydrotriborate anion. Specifically, the dimer [CpW(CO) 3 ] 2 (Cp = m 5 -C 5 H 5 ) was employed as the metal reagent. However, the formation of dinuclear metallaborane complexes did not ensue. Rather, clean, rapid, systematic borane-cage expansion was observed. The [B 3 H 8 ] m cluster was quantitatively converted to B 5 H 9 ,[B 9 H 14 ] m , or [B 11 H 14 ] m , or both, depending on reaction conditions. Refluxing a 1:1 mixture of [B 3 H 8 ] m and [CpW(CO) 3 ] 2 in toluene or dioxane lead to the rapid, quantitative conversion of [B 3 H 8 ] m to B 5 H 9 . However, refluxing a 2:1 mixture of [B 3 H 8 ] m and [CpW(CO) 3 ] 2 in the same solvents yielded [B 9 H 14 ] m and [B 11 H 14 ] m as the primary products; when glyme was the solvent, only [B 9 H 14 ] m was observed, even after prolonged heating.