A brief overview of the structural determination of cyclopentadienyliron arene complexes

Abstract

This article constitutes a brief overview of the use of NMR spectroscopy for the determination of the structure of a number of cyclopentadienyliron arene systems. The examples presented here demonstrate the use of one- and two-dimensional NMR techniques in predicting the chemical structure and dynamics of these complexes. The numerous isomers obtained from the hydride addition to mono- and dicyclopentadienyliron arene complexes were identified using 2D HH COSY and CH COSY. The 2D 1H COSY, DQ-COSY and NOE study of the ( η 6-2,6-dimethylphenyl)-phenylsulphonylacetonitrile- η 5-cyclopentadienyliron cation showed that there is restricted rotation about the arene-methine carbon bond. 1D NMR was also used for the determination of the diastereomeric nature of the arene complexes, which arose from their complexation to the cyclopenta-dienyliron moieties, as well as in estimating the number of repeating units in the oligomeric complexes.