Abstract
Density functional theory calculations were used to systematically explore the effects of axial ligation by solvent molecules on the reactivity and selectivity of dirhodium tetracarboxylates with diazo compounds in the context of C–H insertion into propane. Insertions on three types of diazo compounds—acceptor/acceptor, donor/acceptor, and donor/donor—promoted by dirhodium tetraformate were tested with and without axial solvent ligation for no surrounding solvent, dichloromethane, isopropanol, and acetonitrile. Magnitudes, origins, and consequences of structural and electronic changes arising from axial ligation were characterized. The results suggest that axial ligation affects barriers for N2 extrusion and C–H insertion, the former to a larger extent.
Version notes
Additional tests on DFT functionals demonstrate optimizing geometries with dispersion corrections on B3LYP functional (i.e., adding the D3(BJ) correction by Grimme and coworkers) had little effect on the energies and thus do not impact our overall conclusions.
Content

Supplementary material

Supporting Information: Effects of Axial Solvent Coordination to Dirhodium Complexes on Reactivity and Selectivity in C–H Insertion Reactions: A Computational Study
Supporting Data and Figures for the main text.
Supplementary weblinks
ioChem-BD DOI
All structures and coordinates can be found on the ioChem-BD website.