Bis(Hydrosulfido)-Bridged Dinuclear Rhodium(I) Complexes as a Platform for the Synthesis of Trinuclear Sulfide Aggregates with the Core [MRh2(m3-S2)] (M = Rh, Ir, Pd, Pt, Ru)

The reaction of [Rh(μ-SH)(CO)(PPh3)]2 or [Rh(μ-SH){P(OPh)3}2]2 with [Cp*MCl2]2 (M = Rh, Ir) in the presence of NEt3 afforded the Rh3 and IrRh2 sulfido-bridged compounds [Cp*M(μ3-S)2Rh2(CO)2(PPh3)2] (M = Rh, 1; Ir, 2) and [Cp*Rh(μ3-S)2Rh2{P(OPh)3}4] (3). The reaction with [MCl2(cod)] (M = Pd, Pt), cis-[PtCl2(PPh3)2] or [(η6-C6H6)RuCl2]2 under the same experimental conditions gave [(cod)M(μ3-S)2Rh2-{P(OPh)3}4] (M = Pd, 6; Pt, 7), [(cod)M(μ3-S)2Rh2(CO)2(PPh3)2] (M = Pd, 8; Pt, 9), [(PPh3)2Pt-(μ3-S)2Rh2(CO)2(PPh3)2] (10) and [(η6-C6H6)Ru(μ3-S)2Rh2(CO)2(PPh3)2] (12), with PdRh2, PtRh2 and RuRh2 trimetallic cores. The aggregates derived from [Rh(μ-SH)(CO)(PPh3)]2 were isolated as a mixture of trans and cis isomers in which the trans isomer predominates. The reaction of [Rh(μ-SH){P(OPh)3}2]2 with 2 equiv. of n-BuLi at 253 K followed by addition of [Cp*IrCl2]2 gave [Cp*Ir(μ3-S)2Rh2{P(OPh)3}4] (4) and [Cp*2ClIr2(μ3-S)2Rh{P(OPh)3}2] (5) in a 3 : 2 ratio. The RuRh2 compound [(η6-C6H6)Ru(μ3-S)2Rh2{P(OPh)3}4] (11) was prepared similarly from [Rh(μ-SH){P(OPh)3}2]2 and [(η6-C6H6)RuCl2]2 using n-BuLi as a deprotonating agent. The molecular structures of compounds 3, 6, 7, 9 and 11 have been determined by X-ray analysis. The trinuclear complexes exhibit an asymmetric triangular metal core with two triply bridging sulfido ligands resulting in a distorted trigonal-bipyramidal M3(μ3-S)2 heterometallic metal–sulfur core