Intermetallic compounds have important applications in the areas of catalysis, energy conversion, and storage. These compounds are most commonly made by high-temperature solid state reactions by mixing stoichiometric ratios of desired elements in a flux. This synthesis method is often impractical due to the use of high-temperatures and phase segregation in the resulting products. To solve this issue, heterobimetallic “lantern” complexes have been used as single-source precursors in the synthesis of different intermetallic compounds.  These air-stable heterobimetallic lantern complexes contain two different metals bonded together, along with a phosphine ligand scaffold, and were originally studied for energy storage applications and the unusual bonding properties of the metals. Decomposition of single-source precursors is an ideal synthesis method due to the already existing metal-metal bond, lower decomposition temperatures than solid state flux synthesis, and the diversity of precursors available. During this study, 8 different precursors have successfully been used to synthesize intermetallic products such as NiSb, NiAs, PtSb, PdSb, and Au<sub>2</sub>Bi. Other important intermetallic products may also be easily synthesized just by changing the metals in the heterobimetallic precursor template.<br/>

Thermolysis of heterobimetallic single-source precursors: A springboard to the synthesis of binary intermetallic compounds

255th National Meeting (2018)

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