Page 85 - Arrow Pushing in Inorganic Chemistry A Logical Approach to the Chemistry of the Main Group Elements

FURTHER READING 65
2. The metals act as strong reducing agents. The metals promote a variety of reductive
processes, including the Wurtz, pinacol, and acyloin couplings, as well as the Birch
reduction.
3. The metals exhibit an extensive covalent chemistry involving carbon, of which Grig-
nard and organolithium reagents deserve particular mention.
4. The hydride anion is well known in salts. Much more exotic are the alkalide anions,
−
which, with the exception of Li , have all been synthesized under specialized condi-
tions.
5. Dihydrogen activation, traditionally the preserve of transition-metal catalysts, has
recently been accomplished with p-block reagents, including a nucleophilic carbene
and FLPs.
6. A unique metal–metal-bonded Mg(I)–Mg(I) molecule has recently been synthesized
with the help of bulky capping ligands. The molecule, often referred to as the Jones’s
Mg(I)–Mg(I) reagent, has already been applied to synthetic problems.

FURTHER READING

Besides the general references listed in Appendices 1 and 2, the following provide additional infor-
mation on the recent developments mentioned in this chapter.

1. Several review articles on frustrated Lewis pairs have been assembled in (a) Erker, G.; Stephan,
D. W., eds. “Frustrated Lewis Pairs I: Uncovering and Understanding,” Top. Curr. Chem. 2013,
332, 1–350. (b) Erker, G.; Stephan, D. W., eds. “Frustrated Lewis Pairs II: Expanding the scope,”
Top. Curr. Chem. 2013, 334, 1–317. These two volumes provide comprehensive coverage of this
remarkable class of molecules.
2. (a) Green, S. P.; Stasch, A.; Jones, C. “Stable Magnesium(I) Compounds with Mg–Mg Bonds,”
Science 2007, 318, 1754–1757. (b) Ma, M. T.; Stasch, A.; Jones, C. “Magnesium(I) Dimers
as Reagents for the Reductive Coupling of Isonitriles and Nitriles,” Chem. Eur. J. 2012, 18,
10669–10676. These are two key original papers on Jones’s reagent.