Uranium(III) Complexes with Bulky Aryloxide Ligands Featuring Metal–Arene Interactions and Their Reactivity Toward Nitrous Oxide

We report the synthesis and use of an easy-to-prepare, bulky, and robust aryloxide ligand starting from inexpensive precursor materials. Based on this aryloxide ligand, two reactive, coordinatively unsaturated U­(III) complexes were prepared that are masked by a metal–arene interaction via <i>δ</i>-backbonding. Depending on solvent and uranium starting material, both a tetrahydrofuran (THF)-bound and Lewis-base-free U­(III) precursor can easily be prepared on the multigram scale. The reaction of these trivalent uranium species with nitrous oxide, N₂O, was studied and an X-ray diffraction (XRD) study on single crystals of the product revealed the formation of a five-coordinate U­(V) oxo complex with two different molecular geometries, namely, square pyramidal and trigonal bipyramidal