The effect of acetyl on the electronic communication of carbon-bridged diferrocene

Abstract

Diferrocenylmethane (1) and 2-acetyl(diferrocenyl)methane (2) were synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, and NMR. The molecular structures of 1 and 2 were determined using X-ray single crystal diffraction. The effect of acetyl group on electronic communication between two ferrocenyl units of 2 was investigated through cyclic voltammetry and density functional theory calculation. The acetyl did not influence electronic communication between two ferrocenyl units. The key factor that effected electronic communication of carbon-bridged diferrocenyl derivatives was charge density of the bridged carbon.

Keywords:

• Acetyl
• Diferrocenylmethane
• Crystal structure
• Electrochemistry

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-08-858), the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC-21062011), and the Natural Science Foundation of the Inner Mongolia (20080404MS020).