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) hydroxide Mercury(II) hydroxide Mercury(II) hydroxide or mercury dihydroxide is an inorganic metal hydroxide with the chemical formula HgHO or more commonly written as Hg(OH). It is not possible to make the chemical by adding OH to Hg in aqueous solution, since this merely precipitates yellow solid HgO, although it is possible that Hg(OH) is momentarily produced during the reaction. The first experimental evidence for the existence of the molecule was reported by Wang and Andrews in 2004. They produced it by irradiating a frozen mixture of mercury, oxygen and hydrogen with light from a mercury arc lamp. The mixture had been