Tomohiro AGOU

Organoaluminum compounds have been widely utilized in synthetic organic chemistry as nucleophiles, reducing reagents, and Lewis acids. Most of the organoaluminum compounds contain trivalent aluminum atoms with the formula of AIR(3). In contrast, the properties of low-oxidation state aluminum species, Al (II) and Al (I), have not been investigated thoroughly to date. The low-oxidation state aluminum species are generally highly reactive and thus have been proposed only as short-lived, elusive intermediates in several organic reactions. Recent development in main group element chemistry, however, have made its possible to isolate highly reactive low-valent organoaluminum species as bottlable compounds and investigate their reactivity in detail. We report here the reactivity of organoaluminum species bearing Al-Al bonding towards various unsaturated compounds and dihydrogen. Structure and reactivity of formally anti-aromatic aluminacyclopentadienes (alumoles) are also described.