Mechanistic Insights into Multisilver-Mediated Synergistic Activation of Terminal Alkynes.

Abstract

Synergistic effect extensively exists in multimetal-involved catalytic or mediated processes of group 11 metals due to their remarkable metallophilic interactions. Herein, we present a multiple synergism model for alkynyl substrates and conduct theoretical investigations on various multimetallic bonding modes and the corresponding synergistic activations. We computationally screen nine alkynyl multisilver coordination modes and sequence their reactivity shown in an intramolecular nucleophilic addition reaction by the trend of active μ4-η1η1η2η2 and μ3-η1η1η2 to the relatively inert μ2-η1η2. The transition-state (TS) stabilization of the high-nuclearity mode mainly comes from the significant negative interaction energies between Agn and the substrate based on the distortion/interaction analysis. Energy decomposition analysis-natural orbitals for chemical valence (EDA-NOCV) analysis further reveals the charge-accepting reservoir effect of the polysilver moiety and the orbital match between the alkynyl group and specific spatial arrangement of silver atoms to account for this efficient activation. In addition, tests on different ligands coordinated to silver atoms show a correlation of the ligand conformation adjustability with the reactivity of the alkynyl unit, and the accommodable η2 activation unit embodies a lower deformation energy than the other homonuclear synergistic modes. Privileged multiple synergistic models have been further evidenced based on on-bench experiments by isolating trisilver and tetrasilver alkynyl complexes. This study not only systematically evaluates the multimetallic synergism of different coordination modes in alkyne activation but also provides a guidance for the future design of multimetallic catalysts.