Kinetic study of the reaction of [Rh 6 (CO) 16 ] with NO 2 − : insertion of the nitrogen atom into a Rh 6 cluster core

The cluster [Rh(6)(CO)(16)] reacts with (PPN)NO(2) [PPN = N(PPh(3))(2)] in dichloromethane to form the known cluster [Rh(6)N(CO)(15)](-) in which the nitrogen atom is encapsulated within a trigonal prismatic Rh(6) cluster. A kinetic study shows that the reactions proceed in six kinetically distinguishable steps followed by another four steps that are kinetically unidentifiable but that can nevertheless be identified speculatively on the basis …