The Highly Flexible Bis(hydroxylamine) Ligand [ON(Me)]2CH22− and Its Different Behavior in the Chemistry of Aluminum and Gallium This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie, and the Leonhard-Lorenz-Stiftung. We are grateful to Professor Hubert Schmidbaur (Technische Universität München) for generous support.

Four-, five-, and six-membered rings surround a central five-coordinate aluminum atom in (AlMe)(AlMe2)[(ONMe)2CH2]2 in the solid state, but in solution all eight donor atoms are at some stage involved in bonding to this five-coordinate aluminum center (see scheme). This Al compound is formed from (HONMe)2CH2 and AlMe3, whereas the reaction with GaMe3 leads to the heteronorbornane (Me2GaONMe)2CH2.