Not too long ago I had the oppurtunity to work with ferrocene in the lab. I proceeded to carry out an acetylation reaction on the compound. What did astound me was the stability of ferrocene, a pale orange powder at room temperature.......can anyone explain why it is so stable ? The reason why I ask is that looking at its molecular structure it seemed to me to be unstable in nature. And if it is indeed so stable how come no one could synthesize it before the mid 20th century.

 

One organo-metallic I have extensicesly studied is the Grignard reagent, unfortunately I never acctualy had a chance to deal with the chemical, can anyone please comment on its stability and physical state at room temperature ?

The process for preparing stable high oxidation state ferrocene derivatives, namely Fe(III)/Fe(IV), by reacting ferrocene derivatives in which one or more electron-donating groups are covalently bonded to the cyclopentadienyl rings with electron-donating ligands having strong coordinative groups for ferric species.

 

(APP 2001)

I realise that Ferrocene is resonance stabilised too, what about Grignard's reagents ? Are they as stable too ?

Grinard reagents are reactive by nature, and thus they are used in that they act as strong bases (there is almost an ionic separation of charges, and thus they react twice with most acyl compounds).

I know about their reactivity, I was more interested in knowing their physical properties.........

In other words Grinard reagents are NOT stable. One cannot analysize a molecular by itself rather with the contexts...the molecules enviroment.