7/8/2012 - Synthesis of Polyphenylchromium Compounds

The past couple of days I have been recovering from my dentist reaching into my mouth and stealing my precious wisdom teeth, and dealing with my new found tolerance to most pain killers making it much more difficult than it should be.  But I have finally got my hands back on my organometallics text book so that I can continue in my history of organometallic chemistry.  I last left off in 1917 with the synthesis of Lithium alkyls, which then brings our journey to 1919 with a German chemist named Franz Hein.  This man's claim to fame came to him with the synthesis of polyphenylchromium compounds, being the first sandwich compounds to be made.  This synthesis was performed by the mixture of CrCl₃ (Chromium (III) Chloride) with PhMgBr (Phenylmagnesium bromide) to create a series of these phenylchromium salts that were later found to be made of biphenyl, not phenyl, and oriented in a way making them look like a sandwich.