Reactivity of a scandium terminal imido complex towards unsaturated substrates

Article abstract of DOI:10.1002/anie.201102267

A complex complex: The reactions of a scandium terminal imido complex with a series of unsaturated substrates, including CO₂, PhCN, methyl methacrylate (MMA), cyclopentadiene, PhNCO, and propylene oxide, are presented (see scheme). A variety of intriguing products are formed from this complex. Ar=2,6-(iPr)₂C₆H₃. Copyright

Full text of DOI:10.1002/anie.201102267

DOI: 10.1002/anie.201102267
Organometallic Complexes
Reactivity of a Scandium Terminal Imido Complex Towards
Unsaturated Substrates**
Jiaxiang Chu, Erli Lu, Zhixiao Liu, Yaofeng Chen,* Xuebing Leng, and Haibin Song
Over the last two decades, terminal imido complexes of early
=
transition metals, which contain the M N double bond, have
attracted intensive interest and have been extensively stud-
ied.[1] The research on such complexes has revealed rich
reactivities and applications in the group transfer and
catalytic reactions. In contrast, the chemistry of rare-earth-
metal terminal imido complexes remains unexplored. Owing
to a relative mismatch in LUMO/HOMO orbital energies
between the d0 rare-earth-metal ions and the imido groups,
=
the Ln N (Ln = rare-earth metal) bonds are highly polar and
reactive.[2] The rare-earth-metal terminal imido species once
formed can easily assemble into more stable m or mn (n = 3, 4)
bridged bimetallic or multimetallic species,[3,4] or undergo
reactions with solvents by C H bond activation.[5] Meanwhile,
À
the chemistry of the rare-earth-metal terminal imido com-
=
plexes is of great interest, as the highly polar and reactive Ln
N bonds should lead to rich reactivity. Recently, we have
synthesized and characterized the first rare-earth-metal
terminal imido complex, a scandium terminal imido com-
plex.[6] Herein, we uncover reactions of the scandium terminal
imido complex with a series of unsaturated substrates that
show interesting reactivity and lead to novel products.
When a C6D6 solution of the scandium terminal imido
complex, [MeC(NAr)CHC(Me)(NCH2CH2N(Me)CH2CH2
Scheme 1. Reactions of 1 with unsaturated substrates. MMA= methyl
methacrylate, Ar=2,6-(iPr)2C6H3.
[7,8]
=
NMe2)Sc NAr] (Ar= 2,6-(iPr)2C6H3) (1),
was exposed to
CO2 (1.0 atm) at room temperature, the solution changed
from red to pale yellow in 30 minutes. Monitoring of the
reaction by 1H NMR spectroscopy revealed that 1 was almost
completely converted into a new complex 2. A subsequent
scaled-up reaction provided 2 as colorless crystals in 53%
isolated yield. 2 was characterized by NMR spectroscopy,
elemental analysis, and X-ray crystallography, confirming that
2 is a scandium dicarboxylate (Scheme 1). Rare-earth-metal
carboxylates are common, but to our knowledge, this type of
rare-earth-metal dicarboxylate complexes has not been
reported before. The formation of 2 implies two CO2
=
molecules were activated and inserted into the Sc N double
bond of 1 during the reaction. In 2 (Figure 1), the dicarboxyl
ligand coordinates to the scandium center through two
À
carboxylic oxygen atoms with the Sc O bond lengths of
2.002(3) and 2.026(3) ꢀ, respectively, while the other two
carboxylic oxygen atoms are not coordinated to the scandium
center.
[*] J. X. Chu, E. L. Lu, Z. X. Liu, Prof. Dr. Y. F. Chen, Dr. X. B. Leng
State Key Laboratory of Organometallic Chemistry
Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry
Chinese Academy of Sciences
354 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032 (P. R. China)
E-mail: yaofchen@mail.sioc.ac.cn
Dr. H. B. Song
State Key Laboratory of Elemento-organic Chemistry
Nankai University
Tianjin 300071 (P. R. China)
[**] This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 20821002 and 21072209) and
Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Figure 1. Molecular structure of 2 with ellipsoids set at 20% proba-
bility. Methyl groups of the isopropyl groups on the aryl rings,
hydrogen atoms, and solvent molecules in the lattice have been
omitted for clarity.
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
under http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201102267.
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The reaction of 1 with one equivalent of benzonitrile at
generated from the reaction of 1 with one equivalent of MMA
could be rapidly converted into 4 by adding MMA. Attempts
to isolate the pure products from the mixture of the reaction
of 1 with one equivalent of MMA were unsuccessful.
However, the reaction of 1 with 3.8 equivalents of MMA
gave the pure 4 in 92% yield of isolated product. Complex 4 is
a novel scandium enolate containing two eight-membered
rings (Scheme 1). Apparently, 4 is formed through two steps
(Scheme 3): 1) [2+4] cycloaddition of 1 with a MMA
room temperature gave an unexpected scandium amidinate 3
with a dianionic tetradentate nitrogen ligand; complex 3 was
isolated with a yield of 60% (Scheme 1). This complex was
structurally characterized by the single crystal X-ray diffrac-
À
À
tion (Figure 2). The C1 C2 (1.51 ꢀ) and C3 C4 (1.49 ꢀ)
Scheme 3. Suggested reaction pathway for the formation of 4.
molecule to generate a six-membered enolate intermediate;
and 2) Michael addition of this enolate with another MMA
molecule to give the final product 4. The second step mimics
the propagation step in early-translation-metal catalyzed
MMA polymerization. The reaction of a zirconium terminal
imido complex with MMA was recently reported.[9] The
reaction gives a [2+4] cycloaddition product, which is robust
and does not undergo Michael addition with additional
MMA. In 4, the enolate and ester fragments were charac-
terized by the X-ray diffraction structural data (Figure 2). The
Figure 2. Molecular structures of 3 and 4 with ellipsoids set at 30%
probability. Methyl groups of the isopropyl groups on the aryl rings
and hydrogen atoms (except the amidinate hydrogen atom) have been
omitted for clarity.
À
bonds are consistent with single bonds, whereas the C2 C3
À
À
À
(1.33 ꢀ) and C4 C5 (1.34 ꢀ) bonds reveal substantial
bond lengths of C52 O3 (1.331(2) ꢀ) and C51 C52
(1.344(3) ꢀ) indicate that the C51-C52-O3 fragment has an
À
À
double-bond character. The Sc N1 (2.12 ꢀ) and Sc N2
À
À
(2.10 ꢀ) bonds are significantly shorter than the Sc N3
enolate structure, while those of C56 O1 (1.229(2) ꢀ) and
À
À
(2.44 ꢀ) and Sc N4 (2.42 ꢀ) bonds. These structural data
C49 C56 (1.507(3) ꢀ) reveal that the C49-C56-O1 fragment
À
clearly indicate the tetradentate nitrogen ligand in 3 is
dianionic, as shown in Scheme 1. This reaction is different
from that of benzonitrile with rare-earth-metal-bridged imido
complexes, which gave the bridged dianionic amidinate
species.[3h] Scheme 2 depicts a proposed mechanism for the
has an ester structure. Furthermore, the Sc O3 (enolate)
bond is significantly shorter than the Sc O1 (ester) bond
À
(1.9907(15) ꢀ versus 2.1616(14) ꢀ).
The reaction of 1 with cyclopentadiene gave a hydrogen
transfer product, a scandium cyclopentadienyl amide 5,
instead of a [2+4] or [2+2] cycloaddition product. The
1H NMR spectrum of the complex shows a sharp singlet at d =
6.32 ppm with an integration value of five, which is typical for
the h5-coordinated cyclopentadienyl ligand. The signal for the
amide proton appears at d = 4.84 ppm as a singlet. In contrast
to those observed in complexes 1 and 2, the two hydrogen
atoms on the same CH2 unit of the CH2CH2NMe2 fragment in
the tetradentate nitrogen ligand are equal, and two CH2 units
show two triplets at d = 2.42 and 2.55 ppm. The methyl groups
of the CH2CH2NMe2 fragment show one peak at d =
2.15 ppm. These observations indicate that the terminal
amine group of the tetradentate nitrogen ligand in 5 is not
coordinated to the scandium center to give the coordination
sites for the cyclopentadienyl ligand.
Complex 1 also reacted with phenyl isocyanate to give a
scandium N,O-bound ureate 6 in 71% yield (Scheme 1). The
X-ray diffraction analysis of the complex reveals that the
nitrogen atom bound to the phenyl substituent coordinates to
the scandium center (Figure 3). Therefore, an isomerization
occurs after [2+2] cycloaddition of 1 with phenyl isocyanate
to minimize steric interactions between the bulky 2,6-
Scheme 2. Suggested reaction pathway for the formation of 3.
formation of 3. Specifically, 1 undergoes [2+2] cycloaddition
with benzonitrile to give an intermediate containing the
dianionic amidinate ligand. As the bulky tetradentate nitro-
gen ligand prohibits the intermediate from aggregation into
more stable bridged species, the dianionic amidinate ligand of
the intermediate abstracts a hydrogen from the tetradentate
nitrogen ligand to form the final product 3.
The reaction of 1 with one equivalent of methyl meth-
acrylate (MMA) gave two products A and 4 along with
unreacted 1, whereas the reaction with 3.8 equivalents of
MMA afforded 4 along with unreacted MMA. Complex A
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and PhNCO, thus clearly demonstrating the nitrogen nucle-
=
ophilicity and the scandium Lewis acidity of the Sc N double
bond. The hydrogen transfer between 1 and cyclopentadiene
reveals that the terminal imido group is also a good proton
acceptor. The cycloaddition of 1 with unsaturated substrates is
followed by other interesting reactions, including Michael
addition, hydrogen transfer, and isomerization, giving rise to
some structurally intriguing products. The catalytic applica-
tion of the scandium terminal imido complex in organic
synthesis is under investigation.
Received: April 1, 2011
Revised: May 23, 2011
Published online: June 29, 2011
Keywords: cycloaddition · hydrogen transfer · isomerization ·
.
N ligands · scandium
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Figure 3. Molecular structures of 6 and 7 with ellipsoids set at 30%
probability. Methyl groups of the isopropyl groups on the aryl rings,
hydrogen atoms (except the anilide hydrogen atom), and solvent
molecules in the lattice have been omitted for clarity.
diisopropylphenyl substituent and the tetradentate nitrogen
ligand. The solution 2D NOESY NMR spectra of 6 are
consistent with the X-ray structure.
The reactivity of 1 towards propylene oxide was also
studied. The reaction provided a scandium allylic alkoxide
amide 7 in 86% yield. The 1H NMR spectrum of 7 shows two
sets of signals in a 1:1 ratio. For example, the amido group
displays two singlets at d = 5.52 and 5.55 ppm, and the methyl
group of the CH2N(CH3)CH2 fragment has two singlets at d =
2.30 and 2.32 ppm. Therefore, 7 exists as two isomers. The
solution 2D NOESY NMR spectra of the complex reveal that
one isomer has the amido group located cis to the methyl
group of the CH2N(CH3)CH2 fragment and the other isomer
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CH2N(CH3)CH2 fragment. Single crystals of this complex
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group located trans to the methyl group of the CH2N-
À
(CH3)CH2 fragment. The bond lengths of C48 C49
À
(1.477(8) ꢀ) and C48 O1 (1.390(6) ꢀ) are consistent with
À
single bonds, whereas the C49 C50 bond (1.272(9) ꢀ) reveals
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double-bond character, indicating an allylic alkoxide struc-
ture. The formation of 7 apparently involves ring-opening and
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presently unclear. The reaction possibly proceeds through a
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reaction of zirconium terminal imido complexes with epox-
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[8] The other scandium terminal imido complex, [MeC-
=
(NAr)CHC(Me)(NCH2CH2NMe2)(DMAP)Sc NAr]
(DMAP = 4-(dimethylamino)pyridine), also reacted with some
unsaturated substrates. However, the released DMAP made the
purification of products difficult.
In summary, scandium terminal imido complex 1 under-
goes [2+2] or [2+4] cycloaddition with CO2, PhCN, MMA,
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Communications
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