UC Riverside

Silylium ion-like reagents, R3Si δ+(carboraneδ-), are successful where silver salts fail in abstracting chloride ion from IrCl(CO)(PPh3) 2 in arene solvents. Replacement of chloride by a very weakly coordinating carborane anion such as CHB11H5Cl 6- promotes unusually facile oxidative addition of chlprobenzene, giving the coordinatively unsaturated IrCl(CO)(C 6H5)(PPh3)2]+ cation. Other arene solvents promote disproportionation with loss of aphosphme ligand to give labile Ir(I) cations of the type [Ir(arene)(CO)(PPh3)] +, having three latent vacant coordination sites. © 2008 American Chemical Society.