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Reactivity of a Gold-Aluminyl Complex with Carbon Dioxide: A Nucleophilic Gold?
Diego Sorbelli1, Leonardo Belpassi2,3, Paola Belanzoni1,2
1Department of Chemistry, Biology and Biotechnology, University of Perugia, Via Elce di Sotto, 8, 06123 Perugia, Italy.
Abstract:
A gold-aluminyl complex has been recently reported to feature an unconventional gold nucleophilic center, which was revealed through reactivity with carbon dioxide leading to the Au-CO2 coordination mode. In this work, we computationally investigate the reaction mechanism, which is found to be cooperative, with the gold-aluminum bond being the actual nucleophile and Al also behaving as electrophile. The Au-Al bond is shown to be mainly of an electron-sharing nature, with the two metal fragments displaying a diradical-like reactivity with CO2.
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