Versatile Complexation Ability of Very Large Phosphino-Terminated Dendrimers

The synthesis of phosphino-terminated dendrimers is described up to the tenth generation, which possess more than 3000 phosphino groups (3-[G'(10)()]). Several complexation reactions of these dendrimers toward various low oxidation states transition metal derivatives have been carried out, up to generation 5 for iron (4-[G'(5)()]: 96 Ph(2)P-->Fe(CO)(4) groups), generation 4 for tungsten (5-[G'(4)()]: 48 Ph(2)P-->W(CO)(5) groups), generation 10 for gold (6-[G'(10)()]: 3072 Ph(2)P-->Au-Cl groups), and generation 6 for rhodium (8-[G'(6)()]: 192 Ph(2)P-->Rh(acac)(CO) groups). These reactions demonstrate that the phosphino-terminated dendrimers behave analogously to monophosphines, in spite of the nanometer size of the high generations.