Liquid injection field desorption ionization mass spectrometry of cyclic metal carbonyl complexes with tetra-antimony ligands.

Reactions of (norbornadiene)Cr(CO)4 or cis-(piperidine)2Mo(CO)4 with R2Sb-SbR2, and cyclo-(R′Sb)n (R′ = Et, n-Pr; n = 4, 5) give the complexes cyclo-[M(CO)4(R2Sb-SbR′- SbR′-SbR2)] (1: M = Cr, R = Me, R′= Et; 2: M = Mo, R = Et, R′ = Et; 3: M = Mo, R = Et, R′ = n-Pr). Not accessible to established characterization methods, the oily, extremely reactive unpurified mixture of 3 with scrambled ligands was characterized by mass spectrometry using liquid injection field desorption ionization (LIFDI).