Syntheses and structures of cationic and neutral, homo- and heteroleptic tert-butoxides of the group 4 metals.

The utility of tri-tert-butoxystannate as a chelating tridentate ligand for group 4 metals was investigated. The highly Lewis acidic metals degraded the stannate ion in a series of tert-butoxide abstraction steps to produce a variety of group 4 tert-butoxides. A total of 1 equiv of NaSn(O(t)Bu)(3) reacted with cis-MCl(4)(THF)(2) [M = Zr (1), Hf (2)] in THF solutions to furnish the salts fac-{[M(O(t)Bu)(3)(THF)(3)](SnCl(3))}, which are separated ion pairs featuring weakly coordinating trichlorostannate ions.