title: Addition of a thallium vertex to empty and centered nine-atom deltahedral zintl ions of germanium and tin.
abstract: Nickel atoms were inserted into nine-atom deltahedral Zintl ions of E(9)(4-) (E = Ge, Sn) via reactions with Ni(cod)(2) (cod = cyclooctadiene), and [Ni@Sn(9)](3-) was structurally characterized. Both the empty and the Ni-centered clusters react with TlCp (Cp = cyclopentadienyl anion) and add a thallium vertex to form the deltahedral ten-atom closo-species [E(9)Tl](3-) and [Ni@E(9)Tl](3-), respectively. The structures of [Ge(9)Tl](3-) and [Ni@Sn(9)Tl](3-) showed that, as expected, the geometry of the ten-atom clusters is that of a bicapped square antiprism where the Tl-atom occupies one of the two capping vertices. This illustrates that centering a nine-atom cluster with a nickel atom does not change its reactivity toward TlCp. All compounds were characterized by electrospray mass spectrometry.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, United States.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rios
authors.forename: Miriam M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Gillett-Kunnath
authors.forename: Jacob D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Allen G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Oliver
authors.forename: Slavi C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Sevov