Oxidative purification of halogenated ferrocenes

Abstract

We report the large scale syntheses and ‘oxidative purification’ of fcI₂, fcBr₂ and FcBr (fc = ferrocene-1,1′-diyl, Fc = ferrocenyl). These valuable starting materials are typically laborious to separate via conventional techniques, but can be readily isolated by taking advantage of their increased E_1/2 relative to FcH/FcX contaminants. Our work extends this methodology towards a generic tool for the separation of redox active mixtures.