Transition metal–catalyzed alkyl-alkyl bond formation #chempaperaday 289

A short and nice review of alkyl-alkyl coupling chemistry. As you may know, it is more challenging than sp2 coupling.




http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6334/eaaf7230

Dinitrogen Splitting Coupled to Protonation #chempaperaday 288

Another N2 activation/splitting paper. There are several examples of similar complexes (you can find them in the first ~15 refs in this paper). Nevertheless, it is a nice paper with good synthetic work. They were able to isolate a N2-bridged complex similar to Cummins' molybdenum dimer. Then the protonation of the complex yields molybdenum nitride (3-X) which was also independently synthesized. So it means no you can't make ammonia with this complex, but still a lot to learn. 

 

 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/anie.201701504/abstract

Terminal Titanyl Complexes of Tri- and Tetrametaphosphate #chempaperaday 287

Here is a bonus titanium paper from my favorite group. A report of one of the few titanium complexes in "all-oxygen coordination environment". After reacting with H2O2, they can be used as oxygen atom transfer agents. There is a lot of 17O NMR study which is so rare that I can't remember I have ever seen one. Very cool!



http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.6b03149