Copper-carboxylate complex, binuclear

Ethers in which at least one group is primary alkyl can be oxidized to the corresponding carboxylic esters in high yields with ruthenium tetroxide. Molecular oxygen with a binuclear copper (II) complex " or PdCVCuCVCO " also converts ethers to esters. Cyclic ethers give lactones. " The reaction, a special case of 19-14,... 

Electron spin resonance studies of the structural features of binuclear copper carboxylates suggest that the magnetic properties of biologically important molecules which contain copper may be better understood with this spectrophotometric technique [728]. Indeed, Greenaway, Norris and Sorenson used electron spin resonance to show that the copper complex of 3,5-diisopropylsalicylic acid is actually isolated as a binuclear complex, Cu(II)2(3,5-DIPS)4(H20)2, as opposed to the mononuclear structure, Cu(II)(3,5-DIPS)2, used throughout this manuscript, and organic solvates of this complex are also binuclear [729]. Electron spin resonance has also been used to study the orientation and mobility of Cu(II)[3-ethoxy-2-oxobutyralde-hyde bis(dimethylthiosemicarbazone)] in a bilayer lipid vesicle [730]. 

With little modification, we may use the N2O4 valence-bond and molecular orbital theory of Sections 7-1 and 7-2 to examine the magnetic behaviour for some binuclear Cu(II) complexes with (3d) configurations for the Cu ions. As examples, we shall consider the Cu(ll)-carboxylate, Cu(II)-chloro and Cu(II)-hydroxo dimers (Cu2(RC02)4, L with = 0 or 2, and Cu Xl with X = Cl or OH. Their geometries are displayed in Figure 8-1. Initially we shall not include the copper 4s and 4p orbitals in the bonding schemes. 

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