Catechol bridges

As with the crowns, the situation becomes more complicated when there are other heteroatoms or substituents in one of the cryptand bridges. The symbol B is used to designate a benzo- or catechol unit in the bridge and subscripts are used to designate heteroatoms when non-oxygen heteroatoms are present. Examples of this are shown in structures 12 and 13 above. 

A variety of ternary complexes containing catecholate moieties are known. For example, in a trimeric Ni11 core the catecholate serves as a bidentate ligand to one Ni11 and also as a bridge between the two podal and the unique axial metal.766... 

Fig. 11 Plots of log EM vs number of bridge methylenes for the formation of catechol, resorcinol, and hydroquinone polymethylene ethers by intramolecular nucleophilic substitution in 99% Me2SO. (Reproduced with permission from Dalla Cort et al., 1980)...

Substitution of the terminal amine with ligating groups, such as catecholate, hydrox-amate or diketonate, lead to the formation of A-cis chiral complexes. In these structures the chiral information content is located in the amino acid bridges, instead of the macrocyclic peptide ring structure used in ferrichrome. It should be emphasized... 

---