Extended Sandwich Molecules Displaying Direct Metal–Metal Bonds

Treatment of [Cp*IrCl2]2(Cp* = pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) with Li[BH3(SePh)] at room temperature led to the isolation of a dimetala analogue of hexaborane(10), nido-[(Cp*Ir)(µ-SePh)2Ir{(Cp*Ir)SePh}B4H8] (1). Solid-state X-ray structure analysis of 1 showed an extended sandwich molecule with two iridium atoms between Cp* and a [B4Ir] ring. Further, in an effort to synthesize the Rh analogue of 1 under similar reaction conditions, we isolated arachno-[{(Cp*Rh)(µ-SePh)3}Rh(µ-SePh)B3H6] (2), a rhodium analogue of tetraboarane(10) in which the {RhB3} unit shows geometric equivalence with a metal π-allyl {MC3} species. Ir complex 1, having an Ir–Ir bond, can be considered similar to the dizinc sandwich complex [Cp*Zn-ZnCp*] in terms of the valence electron count at the metal centers.