Cobalt imide complexes, synthesis

Macrocycle 177 in which the 2,6-pyridino and the 1,4-piperazino moieties were incorporated into the macrocyclic framework has been reported. The synthesis of 177 (10%) was accomplished by treatment of 2,6-dichloropyridine with the dianion of Ar,Ar -W. (2-hydroxyethyl)piperazine in refluxing xylene. Attempts to prepare the cobalt(II) complex of 177 resulted in diprotonation of the macrocycle. The X-ray crystal structure determination analysis has been performed for both 177 and 178. According to the crystal structure analysis of 178, the piperazine rings are in the chair conformation in the solid state and the molecule is fairly rigid due to the imposed steric constraints of the imidate moieties l39). 

In many of the above cyclization reactions it is not clear to what extent the metal ion is important. In most cases a geometrical effect is significant but electronic activation is probably not always of importance. The corphin synthesis (see Scheme 68) is a good example of precise geometrical requirements. This cyclization succeeds for the palladium complex but not for nickel or cobalt complexes. The imidate condensation seems to require steric acceleration and more is provided by the desire of palladium to attain planarity than the urge for nickel or cobalt to do so. 

The principal impetus to the study of zinc thiolates has undoubtedly been the search for structural models for the metal coordination in zinc metalloproteins such as the Zn(S-Cys)2(His)2 center in the transcription factor IIIA and other zinc fingers that feature in protein-DNA interactions (93, 94). The 2 1 complexes [M(SR)2l (M = Zn, Cd SR = TIPT, TEMT) were used as the principle precursors for the synthesis of such models for the Zn(S-Cys)2(His)2. Thus complexes of the types [Cd(TIPT)2(l-CH3-imid)2], [Zn(TIPT)2(bipy)], and [Zn(TEMT)2(l-CH3-imid)2l (imid = imidazole, bipy = bipyridine) were ssmthesized by addition of a nitrogeneous base to the precursor in MeCN. All of them have been characterized by X-ray crystallography and were found to have distorted tetrahedral geometries. It was noticed that the cobalt analogue binds a solvent molecule MeCN to form five-coordinate [Co(TIPT)2(bipy)(CH3CN)], whereas [Zn(TIPT)2(bipy)] does not 96,97). 

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