The d
6 complexes of formula (
5-Cp)Ru(CO)(ER
3)ONO
2, where ER
3 = AsPh
3, PPh
3, P(
p-anisyl)
3, PPh
2(
o-anisyl), and P(OPh)
3, were prepared by reaction of their chloro analogueswith AgNO
3 in CH
2Cl
2. They underwent moderately slow substitution of the relatively weaklycoordinating nitrate by chloride in dry CH
2Cl
2 in the presence of excess [N(PPh
3)
2+]Cl
-. Akinetics study showed the reaction to be first order in nitrato complex and independent ofchloride salt concentration under pseudo-first-order conditions. First-order rate constantsfor nitrate metathesis follow the trend P(OPh)
3 < PPh
3 < P(
p-anisyl)
3 < AsPh
3 PPh
2(
o-anisyl), with
k1 at 25
C for the first four in the series from 1.4 to 4.4 × 10
-5 s
-1. Activationparameters for conversion of (
5-Cp)Ru(CO)(AsPh
3)ONO
2 to its chloride are
H = 17(2)kcal/mol and
S = -21(5) eu. Even use of a slightly moist solvent increased the rate ofnitrate metathesis by 20-30% without changing the form of the rate law. The complexcontaining PPh
2(
o-anisyl) was approximately 2 orders of magnitude more reactive (
k1 = 4.9× 10
-3 s
-1). A likely explanation is stabilization of a coordinatively unsaturated intermediateby weak coordination of the potentially chelating
o-OMe group. A mechanism entailing rate-limiting conversion of the neutral nitrato complex into a coordinatively unsaturated ion-paired species is consistent with this set of data. Semiempirical calculations (PM3(tm)), whichmodel the structures of complexes in these systems quite well, supported such behavior.X-ray crystal structures were determined for the AsPh
3 nitrato and chloro complexes andfor the PPh
3 chloro complex.