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[Cu(bipy)Cl2] is coordinated by a nitrogen atom and a pheno-
late oxygen atom to form a chelate ring, removal of the OH
group might be more difficult and the catalyst, [Cu(bipy)Cl2],
will be trapped permanently, which will terminate the catalytic
cycle. Thus, we propose coordination of ꢀC=NꢀOH to the CuII
center by the O atom to give an unstable intermediate, which
subsequently undergoes attack by NaN3 across the C=N bond
and removal of the oxime OH group.[14] However, when the re-
action is performed in stoichiometric proportions, the formed
tetrazole reacts immediately with [Cu(bipy)Cl2] to give com-
plex 1 in quantitative yield. Parallel reactions under identical
reaction conditions, but in the absence of [Cu(bipy)Cl2], do not
lead to the formation of trace amounts of tetrazoles (Figure S7
in the Supporting Information); this, on the other hand, firmly
establishes the metal ion/complex catalyzed transformation of
oxime to tetrazole in the presence of sodium azide.
in the range of n˜ =40–130 cmꢀ1 [19]
. To confirm the involvement
of the metal ion/complex in the formation of the iminoacylat-
ed product we performed parallel reactions under identical
conditions, but in the absence of [Cu(bipy)Cl2], and it was ob-
served that the oxime remained unreacted during the entire
course of the reaction without any sign of the formation of
iminoacylated product, as evidenced from ESI-MS (ꢀ) analysis
(Figure S7 in the Supporting Information). Similar observations
were made by Raptopoulou et al.,[22] who used simple copper(-
II) ions and proposed that oxime–MeCN coupling occurred
with bulk MeCN. Herein, we observed that activation of MeCN
through metal coordination was a prerequisite for the reaction.
In the transformation of the oxime to the tetrazole, in the
presence of an azide ion, the solvent played a vital role. DMSO,
which is a polar aprotic solvent (Na+), is heavily solvated and
makes the anion (N3ꢀ) free and like a ‘naked ion’, thereby in-
creasing its nucleophilicity to attack the electron-deficient
carbon center in ꢀC=NꢀOH. On the other hand, when using
When we performed this reaction in MeOH, THF, acetone, or
other low-boiling solvents alone, no tetrazole formation took
place; rather simple, mononuclear, pseudo-macrocyclic com-
plex 2 formed. This was confirmed by single-crystal X-ray dif-
fraction studies and also by ESI-MS+ analysis (Figure S6 in the
Supporting Information). On the other hand, when we per-
formed the same reaction in MeCN, traditional oxime–nitrile
coupling was favored over cycloaddition to give the tetrazole.
The in situ formation of iminoacylated ligand Lꢀ is best de-
scribed by nucleophilic attack of the oximato oxygen atom of
5-Br-H2salox to the unsaturated carbon atom of the nitrile
group of MeCN (Figure S6 in the Supporting Information). The
question now arises as to whether the oximato oxygen attacks
the carbon atom of MeCN present in the bulk or in the coordi-
nated state (Scheme 5). To check these possibilities, we record-
ed the IR spectrum of [Cu(bipy)Cl2] in MeCN, and it was ob-
served that MeCN did coordinate to the metal center because
there were two IR stretching frequencies at n˜ =2294 and
2252 cmꢀ1, which corresponded to coordinated and free
MeCN, respectively. The shift in the IR frequency by 42 cmꢀ1
(Figure S8 in the Supporting Information) is normal and occurs
ꢀ
methanol as a polar solvent, both Na+ and N3 become solvat-
ed simultaneously within the solvent cage through ion–dipole
interactions (MeOH can form hydrogen bond with the azide),
ꢀ
which reduce the nucleophilicity of N3 to such an extent that
it cannot promote the cycloaddition reaction of oxime for tet-
razole formation.
Magnetic properties
The cT value for 1 at 300 K is 0.94 cm3 molꢀ1 K, and is in accord-
ance with the expected value for two uncoupled copper(II)
ions (0.91 cm3 molꢀ1 K, considering g=2.2; Figure 3). The cT
product remains constant as the temperature decreases, until
approximately 50.0 K. It then decreases faster and finally reach-
es 0.67 cm3 molꢀ1 K at 1.8 K. This overall behavior is characteris-
tic of a very weak, antiferromagnetically coupled copper(II)
dimer.
The data were fitted by using the spin Hamiltonian given in
Equation (1), in which the spin operator, S, is defined[23] as S=
SCu1 +SCu2
:
H ¼ ꢀJSCu1SCu2 þ gbHS
ð1Þ
The best fit parameters were found for J=ꢀ1.3(1) cmꢀ1 and
g=2.23(1), with a very good agreement factor R=2ꢂ10ꢀ5; R is
defined by Equation (2):
ꢀ
ꢁ
P
2
cTexp tl ꢀ cTcalcd
P
ð2Þ
R ¼
cTe2xp tl
The sign and magnitude of J=ꢀ1.3(1) cmꢀ1 reveals that the
two copper(II) centers in complex 1 are very weakly antiferro-
magnetically coupled. The EPR spectra of all complexes are
given in Figure S9 in the Supporting Information.
Conclusion
The main objective of this study was to explore the effect of
solvent polarity on the single-step transformation of oxime to
Scheme 5. Proposed mechanism for the copper-mediated oxime–nitrile cou-
pling.
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ChemPlusChem 2014, 79, 1649 – 1656 1653