A twist on a classic scaffold: rational design of a new bimetallic platform.

Herein, we report the synthesis of a modular family of novel bimetallic tetraamidodiamine (tada) ligands, Li 4 -R-tada (R = Me 3 Si, t BuMe 2 Si, and i Pr 3 Si). These silylamido ligands display two distinct binding pockets whose steric profiles can be easily tuned by choice of the substituents on silicon. We also show that salt metathesis is a convenient route to install these new ligands on the early transition metals titanium(IV) and vanadium(III).