Hexakis(carbonyl)iron(II) undecafluorodiantimonate(V), [Fe(CO)
6][Sb
2F
11]
2, is conveniently preparedby the oxidative carbonylation of Fe(CO)
5 with XeF
2 as external oxidizer in the conjugate Br
![](/images/entities/oslash.gif)
nsted-Lewissuperacid HF-SbF
5. The colorless compound crystallizes from the reaction medium in high purity. Themolecular structure is obtained by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The cation is a regular octahedron, whilethe vertex-shared di-octahedral [Sb
2F
11]
- anion is distorted from
D4h symmetry by bending and rotationalprocesses, due to significant interionic interactions, primarily of the F···C type. Washing of [Fe(CO)
6][Sb
2F
11]
2with anhydrous HF results in an unusual elution of SbF
5 and the quantitative conversion to hexakis(carbonyl)iron(II) hexafluoroantimonate(V) [Fe(CO)
6][SbF
6]
2. The molecular structure of the salt shows octahedral ionswith slight tetragonal distortions for the cation (elongation) and the anion (compression). Both salts are thermallystable up to 150
![](/images/entities/deg.gif)
C. The averaged bond distances and the vibrational wavenumbers of [Fe(CO)
6]
2+ are nearlyidentical in both compounds. The [Fe(CO)
6]
2+ cation, the first and so far only isolated and structurallycharacterized dipositive, superelectrophilic carbonyl cation formed by a 3d-metal, is further characterized bya normal coordinate analysis (NCA). The obtained force constants are compared to those of the isoelectronicmolecule Cr(CO)
6. Changes in
![](/images/gifchars/pi.gif)
-back-bonding affect the
FCO/CO and
FCO/MC interaction force constants morestrongly than the stretching force constants
FCO and
FMC. All 13 fundamentals of [Fe(CO)
6]
2+ are detectedand assigned with the help of the data obtained from the normal coordinate analysis and density functionalcalculations published previously. The electronic ground state
1A
1g of the [Fe(CO)
6]
2+ cation is established bymagnetic susceptibility measurements of polycrystalline [Fe(CO)
6][SbF
6]
2 and [Fe(CO)
6][Sb
2F
11]
2 between 2and 300 K. The magnetic impurity formed during synthesis is identified as Fe[SbF
6]
2 which has iron(II) inhigh spin (
5T
2g) ground state. Consistent with a diamagnetic ground state are the single line in the
57Fe Mössbauerspectrum (i.s. = -0.003(8) mm s
-1 relative to
![](/images/gifchars/alpha.gif)
-Fe), obtained on polycrystalline samples and the single sharpline in the
13C NMR spectrum in DF solution at 178 ppm with J (
57Fe-
13C) of 19.2 Hz.