4370 Organometallics, Vol. 20, No. 21, 2001
Crochet et al.
ing related amino- and iminophosphines prompted us
to prepare new ruthenium(II) complexes incorporating
this type of ligand in order to enable comparative
studies on their catalytic activity. Since the iminophos-
phine a and its aminophosphine derivative b are readily
accessible16,17 in high yield and can be handled in air,
we believed it to be of interest to use them as ligands of
ruthenium(II) catalysts. Although a wide series of
palladium(II)18 and other transition metal complexes19
have been reported, as far as we know, no ruthenium-
(II) complexes containing bidentate iminophosphine
ligands 2-Ph2PC6H4CHdNR have been described to
date.20 Only some examples containing related tet-
radentate diimino/diphosphines Ph2PC6H4CHdN-X-
NdCHC6H4PPh2 (X ) C2H4, C3H6, C6H12, C6H10, dim-
ethylbiphenylene, binaphthylene)6,21 and tridentate
anionic Ph2PC6H4CHdN-Y (Y)C6H4O-,CHMeCHPhO-)22
ligands are known.
In addition to this type of catalyst, other complexes
bearing a wide variety of similar ligands such as
diamines,2,3,9 amino alcohols,2,10 amino acids,11 bisox-
azolines,2 phenanthrolines,2 diimines,2,12 imino alcohols,10g
aminosulfides,13 and iminopyridines2 have also proved
to be good catalysts in transfer hydrogenation of ke-
tones. Once again, the presence of an N-H group seems
to be crucial to obtain good activity.2b,9f,10c,g,14 The
acceleration effect of primary and secondary amines has
been explained on the basis of their ability to deliver
the hydrogen atom from the metal-hydride catalysts to
the ketones via a six-membered transition structure
involving the N-H moiety (structure C). This mecha-
nism has been supported by theoretical calculations.15
We report herein (i) the synthesis and characteriza-
tion of five- and six-coordinate novel ruthenium(II)
complexes containing the iminophosphine 2-Ph2PC6H4-
CHdNtBu (a ) and the related aminophosphine 2-Ph2-
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