Organometallic chemistry articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stable chelation of the 147Pm radionuclide in aqueous solution by the newly synthesized organic diglycolamide ligand is demonstrated and the resulting complex studied, showing accelerated shortening of bonds at the beginning of the lanthanide series.

    • Darren M. Driscoll
    • , Frankie D. White
    •  & Alexander S. Ivanov

  • Article |

    The design, synthesis and characterization of a series of circular sandwich compounds, cyclocenes, is described, and these cyclic sandwich compounds are expected to lead to further innovations in new functional organometallic materials.

    • Luca Münzfeld
    • , Sebastian Gillhuber
    •  & Peter W. Roesky

  • Article |

    Methane can be oxidized to methanol using N-heterocyclic carbene-ligated FeII complexes, in which the hydrophobic cavity captures the methane substrate from an aqueous solution and releases the hydrophilic methanol product back into the solution.

    • Hiroto Fujisaki
    • , Tomoya Ishizuka
    •  & Takahiko Kojima

  • Article |

    Using a molecular catalyst and a proton–electron transfer mediator in tandem delivers efficient electroreduction of nitrogen to ammonia at modest potentials, an approach that could be used to improve other important reactions.

    • Pablo Garrido-Barros
    • , Joseph Derosa
    •  & Jonas C. Peters

  • Article |

    Iron atoms in a synthetic metal–sulfur cluster can capture nitrogen and catalyse its silylation, demonstrating successful nitrogen reduction by iron atoms in a sulfur-rich environment.

    • Yasuhiro Ohki
    • , Kenichiro Munakata
    •  & Kazuki Tanifuji

  • Article |

    Chemical experiments on californium are stymied by isotope availability and radioactivity considerations, but are advanced here with synthesis and characterization of an organometallic complex.

    • Conrad A. P. Goodwin
    • , Jing Su
    •  & Joseph W. Ziller

  • Article |

    Strongly reducing β-diketiminate complexes containing magnesium in its zero oxidation state are reported, among which is a compound with a linear triatomic Mg–Mg–Mg core.

    • B. Rösch
    • , T. X. Gentner
    •  & S. Harder

  • Article |

    An iron complex sequentially activates N2 and C–H bonds in benzene to form aniline, with coupling achieved through partial silylation of a reduced iron–nitrogen complex and phenyl migration.

    • Sean F. McWilliams
    • , Daniël L. J. Broere
    •  & Patrick L. Holland

  • Article |

    The synthesis of uranium- and thorium-containing metallabiphenylenes demonstrates the ability of the actinides to stabilize aromatic/antiaromatic structures where transition metals have failed.

    • Justin K. Pagano
    • , Jing Xie
    •  & Jaqueline L. Kiplinger

  • Article |

    Redox-switchable chelation is demonstrated for a carborane cluster molecule, leading to controlled chemical or electrochemical capture and release of uranyl in monophasic or biphasic model solvent systems.

    • Megan Keener
    • , Camden Hunt
    •  & Gabriel Ménard

  • Letter |

    A six-coordinate transition-metal complex with a hexagonal planar geometry is isolated and characterized.

    • Martí Garçon
    • , Clare Bakewell
    •  & Mark R. Crimmin

  • Letter |

    An aluminium compound is synthesized in which the aluminium is formally anionic; reactions with various substrates suggest that this compound acts as the nucleophilic partner in both metal–carbon and metal–metal bond-forming reactions.

    • Jamie Hicks
    • , Petra Vasko
    •  & Simon Aldridge

  • Letter |

    Metal complexes of the pentazole anion exhibit multiple coordination modes, through ionic, covalent and hydrogen-bonding interactions, and good thermal stability with onset decomposition temperatures greater than 100 °C.

    • Yuangang Xu
    • , Qian Wang
    •  & Ming Lu

  • Letter |

    Magnetic hysteresis is observed in a dysprosocenium complex at temperatures of up to 60 kelvin, the origin of which is the localized metal–ligand vibrational modes unique to dysprosocenium.

    • Conrad A. P. Goodwin
    • , Fabrizio Ortu
    •  & David P. Mills

  • Letter |

    Homogenous electrocatalytic water reduction with formation of dihydrogen is demonstrated with a trisaryloxide U(III) complex, for which the catalytic cycle was elucidated and found to involve rare terminal U(iv)–OH and U(v)=O complexes.

    • Dominik P. Halter
    • , Frank W. Heinemann
    •  & Karsten Meyer

  • Letter |

    The environmental and geopolitical problems associated with fossil fuels might be alleviated if it were possible to produce synthetic multicarbon fuels efficiently from single-carbon feedstocks; here, a molybdenum compound supported by a terphenyl–diphosphine ligand is used to convert carbon monoxide into a metal-free C2O1 fragment, with the ligand both serving as an electron reservoir and stabilizing the different intermediate species.

    • Joshua A. Buss
    •  & Theodor Agapie

  • Letter |

    Palladium(ii) complexes can be used in efficient and highly selective cysteine conjugation reactions that are rapid and robust, and the resulting aryl bioconjugates are stable towards acids, bases, oxidants and external thiol nucleophiles.

    • Ekaterina V. Vinogradova
    • , Chi Zhang
    •  & Stephen L. Buchwald

  • Letter |

    Transition metal–ligand fragments are often able to bind and release several carbon monoxide molecules, such as the catalysts used in industrial-scale acetic acid synthesis and the active sites of hydrogenase enzymes, but main-group elements have never shown an ability to bind more than one carbon monoxide molecule; here a boron-based compound stable to moisture and air is synthesized and shown to contain multiple carbon monoxide units bound to the central boron atom.

    • Holger Braunschweig
    • , Rian D. Dewhurst
    •  & Qing Ye

  • Letter |

    Mapping the frontier-orbital interactions with atom specificity using X-ray laser-based femtosecond-resolution spectroscopy reveals that spin crossover and ligation determine the sub-picosecond excited-state dynamics of a transition-metal complex in solution.

    • Ph. Wernet
    • , K. Kunnus
    •  & A. Föhlisch

  • Review Article |

    Some of the most recent and significant developments in homogeneous nickel catalysis are reviewed, including nickel-mediated cross-coupling reactions and carbon–hydrogen bond activation reactions.

    • Sarah Z. Tasker
    • , Eric A. Standley
    •  & Timothy F. Jamison

  • Outlook |

    Rebecca Melen talks to Robert Grubbs, the joint winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, about how his research is being applied to many different processes.

  • Outlook |

    Richard Schrock, a recipient of the 2005 chemistry prize, speaks with Jonathan Moerdyk about whether olefin metathesis, the field he helped to pioneer, has peaked.

  • News & Views |

    Metathesis reactions can be used to make carbon–carbon double bonds — bar one isomeric class. By using new catalysts and balancing out the stabilities of intermediates in the reaction, the elusive isomers can be made. See Article p.461

    • Daesung Lee

  • Article |

    There are a large number of chemical transformations in which alkenes act as the reactants and/or the products of the reaction, but methods enabling the facile synthesis of 1,2-disubstituted Z alkenes are scarce. This paper describes catalytic Z-selective cross-metathesis reactions of terminal enol ethers, which have not been reported previously,and allylic amides, used thus far only in E-selective processes. The utility of this methodology is demonstrated by its use in syntheses of anti oxidant C18 (plasm)-16:0 (PC), found in electrically active tissues and implicated in Alzheimer's disease, and the potent immunostimulant KRN7000.

    • Simon J. Meek
    • , Robert V. O’Brien
    •  & Amir H. Hoveyda

  • Letter |

    Some beetle shells exhibit iridescence owing to the chiral organization of chitin making up the beetle's exoskeleton. Inspired by this, these authors fabricate thin glass films with helical pores introduced using a renewable cellulose template. The chiral structure allows the material, which can be free-standing, to selectively reflect light at a specific wavelength that can be tuned across the visible spectrum by altering the ratio of silica to cellulose during synthesis.

    • Kevin E. Shopsowitz
    • , Hao Qi
    •  & Mark J. MacLachlan

  • News & Views |

    Unlike its neighbours on the right-hand side of the periodic table, boron barely forms an anion. A new trick has been established that allows it to do so, enabling a highly unusual complex to be prepared.

    • Kyoko Nozaki

  • News & Views |

    As a rule of thumb, carbon–carbon bonds are not easily broken. But a tungsten complex has been found to break a particularly strong carbon–carbon bond, opening up fresh opportunities for organic synthesis.

    • Alan S. Goldman

  • Letter |

    The transformation of petroleum-derived feedstocks into useful chemicals often requires controllable cleavage of C–H or C–C bonds. There are many examples of achieving this through the oxidative addition of C–H bonds to metal centres, but analogous transformations of C–C bonds are rare. Here, using a tungsten centre and exploiting the formation of an unusual chelating ligand, a strong C–C bond is cleaved; other metal centres with suitable ancillary ligands could perform the same function.

    • Aaron Sattler
    •  & Gerard Parkin

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