Atom-transfer within the coordination sphere of early-late heterobimetallic complexes: rapid deoxygenation of sulfoxides at low temperatures

Extremely rapid oxygen transfer from sulfoxides to a carbonyl ligand to giv e the corresponding thioether and coordinated CO2 is observed in the reacti ons of unsupported Zr-Ru heterodimetallic complexes with sulfoxides; this i s interpreted to arise from the cooperative reactivity of the two complemen tary metal complex fragments bound to each other through a highly polar met al-metal bond.