trans-Chlorido(phenanthren-9-yl)bis(triphenylphosphane)nickel(II)

The title compound, [Ni(C14H9)Cl(C18H15P)2], was synthesized from the reaction between 9-chlorophenanthrene, NiCl2·6H2O and triphenylphosphane in ethanol. The bond angles around the NiII atom indicate that it exists in a slightly distorted square-planar geometry.

The title compound, [Ni(C 14 H 9 )Cl(C 18 H 15 P) 2 ], was synthesized from the reaction between 9-chlorophenanthrene, NiCl 2 Á6H 2 O and triphenylphosphane in ethanol. The bond angles around the Ni II atom indicate that it exists in a slightly distorted square-planar geometry.
We thank the Welch Foundation (V-004) for financial support. We are very grateful to Dr Joseph Reibenspies at Texas A & M University for the X-ray crystallographic analysis. The X-ray diffractometers, small angle scattering instrumentation and crystallographic computing systems in the X-ray Diffraction Laboratory at the Department of Chemistry, Texas A & M University, were purchased with funds provided by the National Science Foundation (CHE-9807975, CHE-0079822 and CHE-0215838).
Supplementary data and figures for this paper are available from the IUCr electronic archives (Reference: VM2114).
The application of the title compound as catalyst in cross-coupling reactions is under investigation.

Experimental
A stirred mixture of 1.20 g (5.0 mmol) of NiCl 2 .6H 2 O, 2.88 g (11.0 mmol) of triphenylphosphine and 25 ml of 96% ethanol was heated until a gentle reflux started. 9-Chlorophenanthrene (10.0 mmol, 2.13 g, excess) was then added, followed by zinc dust (0.33 g, 5.0 mmol, Merck, analytical grade) over 5 min. The dark-green mixture very soon turned yellow. After stirring and heating under reflux for 1.5 h (under nitrogen), the mixture was cooled to 293 K. Four 2 ml portions of 30% aqueous hydrochloric acid were added over 15 min. After stirring for 1.5 h, the solid was filtered off on a sintered-glass funnel and successively washed with 5 ml of ethanol, twice with 5 ml of 1 M aqueous hydrochloric acid, twice with 5 ml of 96% ethanol and once with 5 ml of pentane. The yellowish solid (3.10 g) was dried in vacuo. Single crystals suitable for X-ray diffraction were obtained by recrystallization from CH 2 Cl 2 /hexanes. supplementary materials sup-2 Refinement All non-hydrogen atoms were refined with anisotropic thermal parameters. The hydrogen atoms bound to carbon atoms were placed in idealized positions and constrained to ride on their parent atoms, with d(C-H) = 0.95 Å, U iso (H) = 1.2U eq (C). Fig. 1. A view of the molecular structure. Ellipsoids are drawn at the 30% probability level.

trans-Chlorido(phenanthren-9-yl)bis(triphenylphosphane)nickel(II)
Crystal data [Ni(C 14  as those based on F, and R-factors based on ALL data will be even larger.