The Aluminyl Anion: A New Generation of Aluminium Nucleophile

Trivalent aluminium compounds are well known for their reactivity as Lewis acids/electrophiles, a feature that is exploited in many pharmaceutical, industrial and laboratory-based reactions. Recently, a series of isolable aluminium(I) anions (“aluminyls”) have been reported, which offer an alternative to this textbook description: these reagents behave as aluminium nucleophiles. This minireview covers the synthesis, structure and reactivity of aluminyl species reported to date, together with their associated metal complexes. The frontier orbitals of each of these species have been investigated using a common methodology to allow for a like-for-like comparison of their electronic structure and a means of rationalising (sometimes unprecedented) patterns of reactivity.