Fluoro-, Fluoroalkyl-, and Heterofluorogold Complexes

Abstract

Gold halides have been the most studied amongst all gold compounds, and provide some extremes with regards to oxidation state (especially for direct Au-F bonded cases), chemical topology, and reactivity. Gold complexes also incorporate a number of CF₃ moieties in an effort to induce inter- or intramolecular hydrogen bonds in addition to aurophilic Au ··· Au interactions (of comparable strength to an H bond), leading to materials with different structures and properties when compared with non-fluorinated ligands. In the few rare cases where unsaturated ligands (such as ethylene) are coordinated to a gold center, such complexes seem to predominate amongst fluorinated gold complexes.

This Comment attempts to describe all fluoro- and fluoroalkyl complexes of gold, an increasingly active area of research during the past decade. This work covers gold complexes that contain either a direct Au-F bond or a F-C(alkyl) bond, and excludes ligands of the type C₆H_5-nF_n (n = 1–5), which have been previously reviewed. The few gold complexes that contain heterofluorinated ligands with F-X bonds (X˭P, Si, B, Sb, Sn, Ge) are also included.

Keywords:

• fluorine
• fluoro-ligand
• gold
• organofluoride

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Research Foundation (Innovative Grant to M.N.P.), and the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Notes

Dedicated to John P. Fackler, Jr., supervisor and mentor, on the occasion of his (stretched) retirement.