Hydrogenation and carbon-sulfur bond hydrogenolysis of benzothiophene promoted by Re2(CO)10 and H4Re4(CO)12

In the search for metal complexes that promote the cleavage of C-S bonds in thiophenes, we observe that the reaction of Re(2)(CO)(10) and benzothiophene (BT) under a hydrogen atmosphere gives the trinuclear cluster Re(3)(mu-H)(2)(mu(3)-S-2-EtC(6)H(4))(mu-2,3-DHBT)(CO)(9) (1), which contains a hydrogenated BT ligand and a thiolate ligand resulting from the hydrogenation and cleavage of a C-S bond in BT. A detailed study of the reaction shows that Re(2)(CO)(10) initially reacts with H(2) to give H(3)Re(3)(CO)(12), which subsequently converts to H(4)Re(4)(CO)(12), which finally reacts with BT to give 1.