Carbon-13 NMR Spectra of Some Group VIIB Transition Metal Thiocarbonyl and Selenocarbonyl Complexes

Recently, we reported the discovery of the first examples of transition metal selenocarbonyl complexes, (n⁵-C₅H₅) Mn (CO)₂ (CSe) and (n⁶-C₆H₅CO₂CH₂(CO)₂ (CSe).¹ These complexes are particularly interesting because, unlike CO and CS, the diatomic CSe molecule has so far eluded isolation even at very low temperatures,² and so these complexes represent the stabilization of a chemically unstable species through coordination to a metal (cf. metal carbene complexes). We have also synthesized several thiocarbonyl complexes of the same type,^3,4 as well as the analogous rhenium selenocarbonyl complexes.⁴ While many detailed studies of the ¹³C nmr spectra of transition metal carbonyls have appeared in the literature over the past few years, there have been no such studies for the closely related thiocarbonyls and selenocarbonyls, although a few isolated data have been reported recently for metal thiocarbonyls.^5,6 In this communication, we report the ¹³C nmr spectra of the isoelectronic series of complexes, (n⁵-C₅H₄R) M(COI)₂ (CX) (M = Mn, R = H, CH₃; M = Re, R = H; X = O,S, Se).