Tetramesityldiiron is an
organoiron compound
Organoiron chemistry is the chemistry of iron compounds containing a carbon-to-iron chemical bond. Organoiron compounds are relevant in organic synthesis as reagents such as iron pentacarbonyl, diiron nonacarbonyl and disodium tetracarbonylferrate ...
with the formula Fe
2(C
6H
2(CH
3)
3)
4. It is a red, air-sensitive solid that is used as a precursor to other iron complexes. It adopts a
centrosymmetric
In crystallography, a centrosymmetric point group contains an inversion center as one of its symmetry elements. In such a point group, for every point (x, y, z) in the unit cell there is an indistinguishable point (-x, -y, -z). Such point grou ...
structure. The complex is a
Lewis acid
A Lewis acid (named for the American physical chemist Gilbert N. Lewis) is a chemical species that contains an empty orbital which is capable of accepting an electron pair from a Lewis base to form a Lewis adduct. A Lewis base, then, is any ...
, forming monomeric
adduct
In chemistry, an adduct (; alternatively, a contraction of "addition product") is a product of a direct addition of two or more distinct molecules, resulting in a single reaction product containing all atoms of all components. The resultant is ...
s, e.g. Fe(C
6H
2(CH
3)
3)
2pyridine
Pyridine is a basic (chemistry), basic heterocyclic compound, heterocyclic organic compound with the chemical formula . It is structurally related to benzene, with one methine group replaced by a nitrogen atom . It is a highly flammable, weak ...
2. The complex is prepared by treating ferrous halides with the
Grignard reagent
Grignard reagents or Grignard compounds are chemical compounds with the general formula , where X is a halogen and R is an organic group, normally an alkyl or aryl. Two typical examples are methylmagnesium chloride and phenylmagnesium bromi ...
formed from
mesityl bromide:
[{{cite book , doi=10.1002/9781119477822.ch4, title=Inorganic Syntheses, last1=Martinez, first1=Gabriel Espinosa, last2=Killion, first2=Jack A., last3=Jackson, first3=Bailey J., last4=Fout, first4=Alison R., chapter=Sterically Crowded σ- and π-Bonded Metal Aryl Complexes , pages=50–55, year=2018, volume=36, isbn=978-1-119-47782-2 , s2cid=104749729 ]
:2 FeCl
2 + 4 BrMgC
6H
2(CH
3)
3 → Fe
2(C
6H
2(CH
3)
3)
4 + 2 MgBrCl
References
Organoiron compounds