Bimetallics Spanned by Linear All-Inorganic Ligands: The Longest Inorganic, All- sp Chains

The construction of longer chains of sp-hybridized atoms, while relatively facile for carbon, is essentially unknown in the absence of carbon. Our recent results with the 1, 3-haloboration of the WNN fragment of a Chatt-type complex are herein utilized in the synthesis of homo- and heterobimetallic complexes spanned by long all-inorganic sp chains. Notably, this includes structural confirmation of the longest sp-hybridized inorganic chain ever constructed, in a bimetallic complex with a six-atom all-sp NNBBNN bridging ligand.