Chalcogenolato-bridged dinuclear half sandwich complexes of ruthenium and iridium

In an effort to synthesize metallaheteroborane complexes of ruthenium, we carried out the reaction of ruthenium methanedithiolate complex, [(Cp∗Ru)2(B3H8)(CS2H)], (Cp∗ = η5-C5Me5) 1 with [BH3SPh]Li at elevated temperature that yielded a dinuclear bridged thiolate complex [Cp∗Ru(µ-SPh)2(µ-η1-S2)RuCp∗], 2. In a similar fashion, reaction of [Cp∗IrCl2]2 with [BH3TePh]Li yielded tellurolato-bridged diiridium half sandwich complex [Cp∗IrH(µ-TePh)2HIrCp∗], 5. All the compounds have been characterized by various spectroscopic techniques and the structures were unequivocally established by crystallographic analysis. Further, the density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed to investigate the bonding and electronic properties of 2′ and 5′ (Cp analogues of 2 and 5).