Heteronuclear Gold Cluster Compounds

Abstract

The development of the area of heteronuclear gold cluster chemistry can be traced to the pioneering work of Lewis and Nyholm, who reported the first syntheses and crystallographic determinations of compounds, containing gold–metal bonds in a series of articles from 1964 onward. The chapter presents a table presenting the examples of the compounds that have been structurally characterized by X-ray methods and are considered to exhibit gold–heterometal bonding interaction. This chapter explains the current literature relevant to heteronuclear cluster compounds, containing gold–metal bonds, with particular emphasis being placed on those clusters that contain a high proportion of gold in the metal framework. The most widely exploited synthetic route used in the formation of gold–metal bonds involves addition of the gold center as the gold phosphine fragment AuPR3. The first examples of homonuclear gold cluster compounds were obtained by the reduction of gold(I) phosphine complexes, using solutions of borohydride. The addition of gold phosphine fragments to transition metal compounds is readily extended to include reactions of heteronuclear gold cluster compounds and has been used to build up clusters of increasing nuclearity. Heteronuclear gold cluster compounds have been proposed as potential precursors for the synthesis of selective catalysts and also as models of the modifications to the substrate that arise at a the molecular level.