Methyl and arylchalcogenolate complexes of cadmium in a sulfur rich coordination environment: syntheses and structural characterization of the tris(2-mercapto-1-tert-butylimidazolyl)hydroborato cadmium complexes [Tm(Bu(t))]CdMe, and [Tm(Bu(t))]CdEAr (E = O, S, Se, Te) and analysis of the bonding in chalcogenolate compounds.

A series of arylchalcogenolate complexes of cadmium supported by tris(2-mercapto-1-tert-butylimidazolyl)hydroborato ligation, namely [Tm(Bu(t))]CdEAr (EAr = OC(6)H(3)Ph(2), SPh, SePh, TePh), has been synthesized from [Tm(Bu(t))]CdMe; structural characterization by X-ray diffraction indicates that the variation in Cd-EAr bond lengths is similar to that of Zn-EAr and correlates closely with the covalent radius of the chalcogen, in marked contrast to the large variation in M-OAr and M-SAr bond lengths observed for other metals (Zr and Sm).