Synthesis and characterisation of ring-coupled cyclopentadienyl and indenyl bimetallic derivatives of nickel

The reaction of NiCl2(PPh3)2 with 0.5 equivalents of the salts Li2[CMe2(C5H4)2] (1), Li2[CMe2(C9H6)2] (2) or Li2[(C5H4)CMe2(C9H6)] (3) is an efficient route to the synthesis of ring-coupled cyclopentadienyl and indenyl homobimetallic nickel derivatives. The new binuclear complexes [Cl(PPh3)Ni{μ-(η-C5H4)CMe2(η-C5H4)}Ni(PPh3)Cl] (4), [(PPh3)2Ni{μ-(η-C5H4)CMe2(η-C5H4)}Ni(PPh3)2][PF6]2 (5), [(PPh3)2Ni{μ-(η-C9H6)CMe2(η-C9H6)}Ni(PPh3)2][PF6]2 (6), [Cl(PPh3)Ni{μ-(η-C5H4)CMe2(η-C9H6)}Ni(PPh3)Cl] (7), [(PPh3)2Ni{μ-(η-C5H4)CMe2(η-C9H6)}Ni(PPh3)Cl][PF6] (8), [(PPh3)2Ni{μ-(η-C5H4)CMe2(η-C9H6)}Ni(PPh3)2][PF6]2 (9) have been prepared and characterised. The X-ray crystal structure of 5 is reported.