Ultrafast observation of a solvent dependent spin state equilibrium in CpCo(CO)

We report the observation of a solvent-dependent spin state equilibrium in the 16-electron photoproduct CpCo(CO). Time-resolved infrared spectroscopy has been used to observe the concurrent formation of two distinct solvated monocarbonyl photoproducts, both of which arise from the same triplet CpCo(CO) precursor. Experiments in different solvent environments, combined with electronic structure theory calculations, allow us to assign the two solvated photoproducts to singlet and triplet CpCo(CO)(solvent) complexes. These results add to our previous picture of triplet reactivity for 16-electron organometallic photoproducts, in which triplets were not believed to interact strongly with solvent molecules. In the case of this photoproduct, it appears that spin crossover does not present a significant barrier to reactivity, and relative thermodynamic stabilities determine the spin state of the CpCo(CO) photoproduct in solution on the picosecond time scale. While the existence of transition metal complexes with two thermally accessible spin states is well-known, this is, to our knowledge, the first observation of a transient photoproduct that exhibits an equilibrium between two stable spin states, and also the first observed case in which a solvent has been able to coordinate as a token ligand to two spin states of the same photoproduct.