Although the cleavage of C–C bonds in unactivated hydrocarbons by soluble transition-metal complexes remains a challenge, such reactions hold the potential to provide access to previously inconceivable skeletal transformations. For instance, one can imagine the dismantling and reassembly of C–C and C–H bonds commonly observed in surface catalysis, but with the increased control innate to homogeneous catalysis. Here we report a pentanuclear nickel cluster that is unreactive to functional groups, such as alcohols, amines and even water, but selectively cleaves the C=C bonds of simple alkenes, such as ethylene, styrene and isobutylene, at temperatures as low as −30 °C and in near-quantitative yields. The isolation of intermediates in reactions with styrene and isobutylene demonstrates that the five nickel centres cooperatively activate three C–H bonds of the alkene substrate before cleaving the C–C bond in the core of the cluster to give a pentanuclear nickel carbide. The net organic product transformation is the abstraction of a carbon atom from an alkene.

尽管可溶性过渡金属络合物裂解未活化烃中的C–C键仍然是一个挑战，但这种反应仍具有提供以前无法想象的骨架转化的潜力。例如，可以想象在表面催化中通常观察到的C–C和C–H键的拆解和重组，但是随着控制的增加，自然发生了均相催化。在这里，我们报告了一种五核镍簇，该簇对官能团（例如，醇，胺甚至水）不具有反应性，但是在低至-30的温度下选择性裂解简单的烯烃（例如，乙烯，苯乙烯和异丁烯）的C = C键°C和接近定量的产率。在与苯乙烯和异丁烯的反应中分离中间体表明，五个镍中心可协同活化烯烃基体的三个C–H键，然后再将C–C键在团簇的核心处裂解，得到五核碳化镍。净有机产物转化是从烯烃中提取碳原子。