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Abstract:
Hemilabile ligands, which have one donor that can reversibly bind to a metal, are widely used in transition-metal catalysts to create open coordination sites. This change in coordination at the metal can also cause spin-state changes. Here, we explore a cobalt(I) system that is poised on the brink of hemilability and of a spin-state change and can rapidly interconvert between different spin states with different structures (“spin isomers”). The new cobalt(I) monocarbonyl complex LtBuCo(CO) (2) is a singlet (12) in the solid state, with an unprecedented diketiminate binding mode where one of the C═C double bonds of an aromatic ring completes a pseudo-square-planar coordination. Dissolving the compound gives a substantial population of the triplet (32), which has exceptionally large uniaxial zero-field splitting due to strong spin–orbit coupling with a low-lying excited state. The interconversion of the two spin isomers is rapid, even at low temperature, and temperature-dependent NMR and electronic absorption spectroscopy studies show the energy differences quantitatively. Spectroscopically validated computations corroborate the presence of a low minimum-energy crossing point (MECP) between the two potential energy surfaces and elucidate the detailed pathway through which the β-diketiminate ligand “slips” between bidentate and arene-bound forms: rather than dissociation, the cobalt slides along the aromatic system in a pathway that balances strain energy and cobalt–ligand bonding. These results show that multiple spin states are easily accessible in this hemilabile system and map the thermodynamics and mechanism of the transition.
