Metal carbonyl 18-electron complexes is sometimes catalysed by catalytic amounts of oxidants, via electron-transfer. Metal carbonyls react with reducing agents such as metallic sodium or sodium amalgam to give carbonylmetalate (or carbonylate) anions: For iron pentacarbonyl, one obtains the tetracarbonylferrate with loss of CO: Mercury can insert into the metal-metal bonds of some polynuclear metal carbonyls: The CO ligand is often susceptible to attack by nucleophiles. For example, trimethylamine oxide and bistrimethylsilylamide convert CO ligands to CO and CN, respectively. In the "Hieber base reaction", hydroxide ion attacks the CO ligand to give a metallacarboxylic acid, followed by the release of carbon
Mercury(II) hydride reaction, it can be seen that mercury(II) hydride hydrolysis is catalysed by acidic conditions. Alireza Shayesteh "et al" conjectured that bacteria, containing the flavoprotein, mercuric reductase, such as "Escherichia coli", can in theory reduce soluble mercury compounds to volatile HgH, which should have a transient existence in nature. Mercury(II) hydride may be prepared by the reduction of mercury(II) chloride. In this process, mercury(II) chloride and a hydride salt equivalent react to produce mercury(II) hydride according to the following equations, which depend on the stochiometry of the reaction: Variations of this method exits where mercury(II) chloride is substituted for its heavier