Organometallic projects currently underway in our laboratory involve bond activation with platinum and palladium, tungsten carbene and carbyne chemistry, and stereoselective addition reactions of coordinated ligands. Three specific projects are summarized below.

The utility of transition metal carbene reagents has blossomed dramatically during the past decade. Electron-rich carbene complexes, [Tp'(OC)₂W=CHR]^- anions have been prepared, and these complexes exhibit unusual reactivity patterns at the carbene carbon. The availability of a heteroatom carbene complex, Tp'I(O)W=C(CH₃)(OSiR₃), in the Schrock manifold of oxidation states provides an opportunity to define the reactivity patterns available to this class of carbene complexes.

We have developed robust Pt(IV) organometallic complexes containing alkyl, hydride, aryl, acyl, formyl and silyl ligands in various combinations with Tp' anchoring the octahedral coordination sphere. The relevance of Pt(II)/Pt(IV) interconversions to alkane activation processes provide the driving force for these synthetic efforts.

The chiral [Tp'W(CO)(PhCºCR)]⁺ fragment binds ketones and imines. These coordinated ketones or imines readily add nucleophiles at carbon, and we are exploring the stereochemistry of the reduced products.