The reactions of 1'-(diphenylphosphino)-1-cyanoferrocene (1) and silver(I) salts with common oxoanions, viz. AgNO3, AgNO2 and Ag2SO4, led to defined products only in the case of AgNO3 and AgNO2.
Whereas the reactions involving silver(I) nitrate produced the phosphine complex [Ag(NO3-kappa O-2,O')(1-kappa P)(2)] (2) irrespective of the metal-to-ligand ratio, those with AgNO2 gave rise to the coordination polymer [Ag{mu(P,N)-1}(NO2-kappa O-2,O')](n) (3) and the discrete monosilver complex [Ag(NO2-kappa O,O')(1-kappa P)(2)] (4) at the Ag:1 molar ratios 1:1 and 1:2, respectively. Compounds 2-4 were structural characterized by spectroscopic methods and by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis.