A New, High‐Yield Synthesis of Tetraphosphacubanes

Cp2Zr complexes of type 1 of phosphaalkyne dimmers, readily available from [Cp2ZrCl2], RCP (R = t-Bu, CMe2Et, 1-adamantyl), and nBuLi, are the starting materials for the tetraphosphacubanes 2. When 1 is treated with hexachloroethane as a halogenating agent, its undergoes a novel dimerization with elimination of [Cp2ZrCl2] producing 2 in quite high yields (for R = tBu, 50% overall).