Isolation and Characterization of s‐Adducts upon Attempted Vicarious Nucleophilic Substitution with Cationic Arene‐Iron Complexes

Reaction of the carbanions derived from chloromethyl phenyl sulfone or 1 ‐chloroethyl phenyl sulfone with the cationic [Fe(arene)Cp] complexes 8 or 9 produced isolable c‐adducts 10‐12. Attempted base induced elimination of the s̀‐adducts, which would have led to products of vicarious nucleophilic substitution (VNS reaction), failed. Similarly, no VNS products were obtained, when the (arene)tricarbonylchromium complexes 4 were reacted with the anion of chloromethyl phenyl sulfone.