A Review on Subvalent Mg(I)–Mg(I) Single Bonded Chemistry

In recent times, complexes containing metal-metal single bonds are one of the synthetic challenging areas of chemistry. The interest also stems from several perspective including synthetic methodology, structure, reactivity, and theoretical involvement. Compared to group 12, 13 and 14 metals, the alkaline earth metals (group 2) is still its infancy. However, recent years have witnessed major achievements of organo-alkaline earth compounds for catalytic utilization. These include hydroamination, hydrophosphination, hydrosilylation, hydrogenation, and polymerization reactions. After the most important breakthrough of the organometallic low-valent stable Zn(I) –Zn(I) compound by Carmona and co-workers, this field of research gets new direction. In 2007, Jones and co-workers were successful in isolating a group 2 metal Mg(I) dimer containing a Mg–Mg single bond. This review article provides the recent development on this Mg(I) dimeric chemistry reported till today and also will highlight their various reactivities.