The synthesis and characterization of sterically unencumbered homoleptic organouranium aryl complexes containing U-C σ-bonds has been of interest to the chemical community for over 70 years. Originally proposed for applications in isotope separation, the instability of the resulting products made characterization very difficult. Taking inspiration from previous work in the Neidig group studying unstable intermediates in iron catalysis, a series of uranium aryl species were isolated. Presented here are the first structurally characterized, sterically unencumbered homoleptic uranium (IV) aryl-ate species of the form [U(Ar)6]2- (Ar = Ph, p-tolyl, p-Cl-Ph). Magnetic Circular Dichroism (MCD) spectroscopy and computational studies provide insight into electronic structure and bonding interactions in the U-C σ-bond across this series of complexes. Overall, these studies solve a decades long challenge in synthetic uranium chemistry, enabling new insight into electronic structure and bonding in organouranium chemistry.

Homoleptic aryl complexes of uranium (IV)

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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