Bulky terphenyl phosphine ligands allow the isolation of a masked low‐coordinate, highly polarized Au(I)/Pt(0) complex. At variance to the inertness of prior coordinatively saturated AuPt systems, this complex exhibits cooperative reactivity toward pyridines. CX activation is observed for 2‐halopyridines (X = I, Br, Cl), while selective ortho ‐CH activation of pyridine‐ N ‐oxide yields an unexpected pyridylidene carbene structure. Computational studies support the synergistic effect of the two metals during bond activation and shed light on the electronic structure of some of these unique species.
Landrini et al. (Thu,) studied this question.