Landmarks in Organo-Transition Metal Chemistry A Personal View [Paperback]

Since the discovery of ferrocene and the sandwich-type complexes, the development of organometallic chemistry took its course like an avalanche and became one of the scientific success stories of the second half of the twentieth century. Based on this development, the traditional boundaries between inorganic and organic chemistry gradually disappeared and a rebirth of the nowadays highly important field of homogeneous catalysis occurred. It is fair to say that despite the fact that the key discovery, which sparked it all off, was made more than 50 years ago, organometallic chemistry remains a young and lively discipline.

Written by the celebrated chemist Helmut Werner, this is the first presentation of his and Fischers significant work in inorganic chemistry. Since the discovery of ferrocene and the sandwich-type complexes, the field has been a huge scientific success story.

Since the discovery of ferrocene and the sandwich-type complexes, the development of organometallic chemistry took its course like an avalanche and became one of the scientific success stories of the second half of the twentieth century. Based on this development, the traditional boundaries between inorganic and organic chemistry gradually disappeared and a rebirth of the nowadays highly important field of homogeneous catalysis occurred. It is fair to say that despite the fact that the key discovery, which sparked it all off, was made more than 50 years ago, organometallic chemistry remains a young and lively discipline.

Prologue.- Biographical Sketch.- The Nineteenth Century: A Sequence of Accidental Discoveries.- Transition Metal Carbonyls: From Small Molecules to Giant Clusters.- A Scientific Revolution: The Discovery of the Sandwich Complexes.- One Deck More: The Chemical #x201C;Big Mac#x201D;.- The Binding of Ethene and Its Congeners: Prototypical Metal #x03C0;-Complexes.- Metal Carbenes and Carbynes: The Taming of #x201C;Non-existing#xl3…