Gallium and gallium dichloride, new solid-state reductants in preparative transition metal chemistry. New, lower temperature syntheses and convenient isolation of hexatantalum tetradecachloride octahydrate, Ta (sub)6 (mu-Cl) (sub)12 Cl (sub)2 (OH (sub)2) (sub)4 .4H (sub)2 O, and synthesis and solid-state structure of a tetraalkylammonium derivative, [N(CH (sub)2 Ph)Bu (sub)3] (sub)4 [Ta (sub)6 (mu-Cl) (sub)12 Cl (sub)6], of the reduced [Ta (sub)6 (mu-Cl) (sub)12] (super)2+ cluster core

Research has been conducted on the octahedral hexanuclear cluster halides of the transition metals. The low temperature solid-state approaches to these compounds carried out via the reduction of TaCl (sub)5 with gallium and gallium dichloride have been investigated and the results are reported.