Photochemistry of a Puckered Ferracyclobutadiene in Liquid Solution Studied by Time-Resolved Fourier-Transform...

Flash photolysis combined with step-scan and rapid-scan Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy was carried out to explore the photochemistry of a puckered, quasi-square pyramidal ferracyclobutadiene, [Fe{κ(2) -C3 (NEt2 )3 }(CO)3 ]BF4 ([1]BF4 ), that features three additional carbonyl ligands in the metal coordination sphere. In liquid solution at room temperature, an excitation with λ=355 nm light resulted in the loss of one CO ligand, which is cleaved from a basal metal-coordination site. Within the time resolution of the experiment, a solvent molecule promptly refills the resultant vacancy at the coordinatively unsaturated metal center. In the weakly interacting liquid, dichloromethane, the counterion of the complex is subsequently able to substitute the solvent in the coordination sphere of the iron center, thereby forming as a stable product a neutral dicarbonyl tetrafluoroborato iron(0) species containing a four-membered ferracycle.