A Highly Lewis Acidic Strontium ansa-Arene Complex for Lewis Acid Catalysis and Isobutylene Polymerization.

The potential of a dicationic strontium ansa-arene complex for Lewis acid catalysis has been explored. The key to its synthesis was a simple salt metathesis from SrI2 and 2 Ag[Al(ORF )4 ], giving the base-free strontium-perfluoroalkoxyaluminate Sr[Al(ORF )4 ]2 (ORF =OC(CF3 )3 ). Addition of an ansa-arene yielded the highly Lewis acidic, dicationic strontium ansa-arene complex. In preliminary experiments, the complex was successfully applied as a catalyst in CO2 -reduction to CH4 and a surprisingly controlled isobutylene polymerization reaction.