Deep-Dive Guides · Organometallic Chemistry

Organometallic Chemistry — the complete deep dive

Organometallic chemistry is bookkeeping plus a small set of elementary steps.

Free extract — the opening section of the guide, in full.

0. How to use — count, then react

Two skills unlock the whole topic. First, count electrons to know how coordinatively saturated the metal is (16e = open a site; 18e = saturated). Second, recognise which elementary step a transformation is, and track how each step changes the electron count, oxidation state and coordination number.

Elementary step	Δ electron count	Δ oxidation state	Δ coordination no.
Ligand association	+2	0	+1
Ligand dissociation	−2	0	−1
Oxidative addition	+2	+2	+2
Reductive elimination	−2	−2	−2
Migratory insertion	−2 (opens a site)	0	−1
β-hydride elimination	+2	0	+1

The three questions for any organometallic species/step: (1) What is the electron count (16 or 18)? (2) What is the metal oxidation state and dⁿ count? (3) Which elementary step is operating, and how does it change (1) and (2)? A cycle is just these steps chained so the electron count oscillates (typically 16 ⇌ 18) and the catalyst regenerates.

Read the rest of this guide

The remaining 10 sections — Electron counting & the 18-electron rule, Hapticity & the ligand zoo, Bonding: CO, phosphines, alkenes, carbenes, The elementary reactions and more — are part of ChemVidya Full Access, along with the other guides, the books, the study notes and 6,000+ practice questions with worked solutions.

See plans Read it in the app