Copyright 2009
Volume 28, Number 1, January 12, 2009
American Chemical Society
Editor’s Page Introduction to the Editor’s Historical Review in This Issue of Organometallics In this issue there appears, after a long delay, Part 2 of my essay-review on the alkyls and aryls of the alkali metals lithium, sodium, and potassium. The molecules on the cover of this issue are two that are featured in this essay: on the top left is Wilhelm Schlenk’s product of the addition of sodium to tetraphenylethylene, (C6H5)2C(Na)C(Na)(C6H5)2, shown here as Schlenk had drawn it, as a covalent molecule with C-Na single bonds, rather than as the disodium salt of the tetraphenylethylene dianion, as we know it today. The second molecule, on the bottom right, is Karl Ziegler’s R-phenylisopropylpotassium, C6H5(CH3)2CK, the compound that he found added to the olefinic double bond and, as a consequence, could initiate the polymerization of 1,3-dienes and styrene, thus launching him on the path to his 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Part 2 completes the account of the major routes used in the preparation of organoalkalimetal compounds, with discussions of the metal displacement and transmetalation reactions and of organolithium-derived superbases. During the course of my preparatory reading I became greatly interested in the life and work of Wilhelm Schlenk, the great pioneer of organoalkali metal chemistrysnot just his work on the alkyls and aryls of sodium and lithium but on all of his other varied research in the organoalkali-metal area spanning the 20 years 1911-1931. Having immersed myself in Schlenk’s papers and related contemporaneous papers of Karl Ziegler, I decided that an account of this extraordinary experimental work on such extremely reactive compounds would be of interest to our readers. Thus, discussions of Schlenk’s work on the diaryl ketone alkali-metal ketyls, the colored triarylmethyl-alkali-metal compounds, and the products of alkali-metal addition to compounds that contain reactive CdC, CdN, and NdN bonds were added. As a result, Part 2 ended up being rather long. Part 2 hopefully will be followed by a short Part 3, which will bring an account of the early work on the structure and bonding of organoalkali-metal compounds. My thanks, as always, to Professor Arnold L. Rheingold for the cover figures.
Dietmar Seyferth Editor OM801048Y
10.1021/om801048y CCC: $40.75 2009 American Chemical Society Publication on Web 12/15/2008
