The hard and soft acid-base principle and metal ion assisted ligand substitution processes

Abstract

Abstract The hard and soft acid-base principle is shown to be a reliable guide of considerable generality in the correlation of metal ion assisted and metal ion catalyzed ligand substitution reactions of the type M (1) −X+M (2) −L M (1) −L+M (2) −X. Numerous examples of reactions of this type which have been reported in the literature are shown to be easily explained on the basis of a rearrangement to a more effective matching up to the hard and soft properties of the metal ions and ligands involved. Use of this principle also leads to the expectation that a very large number of such reactions should be possible, and some previously reported examples are presented to show the predictive advantages of such an approach.