Isolation and Characterization of s‐Adducts upon Attempted Vicarious Nucleophilic Substitution with Cationic Arene‐Iron Complexes

Abstract

Abstract Reaction of the carbanions derived from chloromethyl phenyl sulfone or 1 ‐chloroethyl phenyl sulfone with the cationic [Fe(arene)Cp] complexes 8 or 9 produced isolable c‐adducts 10‐12 . Attempted base induced elimination of the s̀‐adducts, which would have led to products of vicarious nucleophilic substitution (VNS reaction), failed. Similarly, no VNS products were obtained, when the (arene)tricarbonylchromium complexes 4 were reacted with the anion of chloromethyl phenyl sulfone.