Cryptand, alkali metal

In the early years of supramolecular chemistry, a number of studies showed that in comparison to the cyclic crown ethers and bicyclic cryptands, alkali metal cation binding by podands of the oligoethylene glycol type is relatively weak in polar solvents such as water and methanol. Thus [18]crown-6 binds K+ some four orders of magnitude more strongly in methanol solution compared to its open chain podand analog, 2. Representative binding constants for cyclic and acyclic species are shown... 

Key words Cryptand, alkali metal cation complexation, picrate extraction. 

Cryptands, 7, 731-761 alkali metal complexes NMR, 7, 740 reactivity, 7, 743-744 alkaline earth complexes reactivity, 7, 743-744 anion complexes, 7, 747-748 applications, 7, 753-761 as biological models, 7, 753-754 bis-tren... 

A particularly imaginative application of this concept has led to the isolation of compounds which contain monatomic alkali metal anions. For example, Na was reacted with cryptand in the presence of EtNHi to give the first example of a sodide salt of... 

Poly (macrocyclic) compounds. The analytical application of compounds such as crown polyethers and cryptands is based on their ability to function as ligands and form stable stoichiometric complexes with certain cations. Special importance is due to their preference for alkali metal ions which do not form complexes with many other ligands. A number of these compounds are commercially available and their properties and analytical applications have been described by Cheng et a/.11... 

In Chapter 3, we saw that cryptands specifically solvate the alkali metal portion of salts like KF, KOAc, and so on. Synthetic advantage can be taken of this fact to allow anions to be freer, thus increasing the rates of nucleophilic substitutions and other reactions (see p. 455). 

An asymmetric surrounding of thallium(I) in a crown ether (or cryptand) is especially surprising as these polyethers generally provide a highly symmetric surrounding for the coordinated cation. In fact, alkali-metal cations Hke sodium. 

In the case of Kryptofix 221D, a cryptand able to complex the alkali metal cations [141-143], it has been observed that it is solubilized mainly in the palisade layer of the AOT-reversed micelles. And from an analysis of the enthalpy of transfer of this solubilizate from the organic to the micellar phase it has been established that the driving force of the solubilization is the complexation of the sodium counterion. In addition, the enthalpy... 

Crown ethers (Fig. 3.57) and cryptands (Fig. 3.58) can solubilize organic and inorganic alkali metal salts even in nonpolar organic solvents they form a complex with the cation (see Fig. 3.57c), and thus act as an organic mask (Gates, 1992). 

The reduction of the stannyl radical (t-Bu2MeSi)3Sn with alkali metals produces a variety of structural modifications depending on the solvent used (Scheme 2.55). Thus, in nonpolar heptane, a dimeric stannyllithium species [58c Li ]2 (E = Sn) was formed, whereas in more polar benzene, the monomeric pyramidal structure 58c [Ti -Li (C6H5)] was produced. In the latter compound the Li+ ion was covalently bonded to the anionic Sn atom being at the same time n -coordinated to the benzene ring. A similar monomeric pyramidal CIP 58c [Li (thf)2] was prepared by reduction in polar THE the addition of [2.2.2]cryptand to this compound resulted in the isolation of the free stannyl anion 58c K+([2.2.2]cryptand), in which the ion lacked its bonding to the Sn atom. ... 

On the other hand, anions formed by the ring cleavage of octaphenylcyclotetrasilane may be very unreactive due to steric hindrances as well as to the formation of the tight silyl ion pair with alkali metals. We have attempted to decrease these interactions by using cryptands in order to better solvate the alkali metals and form the loose,... 

Novel anions stabilized by alkali-polyether cations The ability of a crown (such as 18-crown-6) or a cryptand (such as 2.2.2) to shield an alkali cation by complex formation has enabled the synthesis of a range of novel compounds containing an alkali metal cation coordinated to a crown or cryptand for which the anion is either a negatively charged alkali metal ion or a single electron (Dye Ellaboudy, 1984 Dye, 1984). Such unusual compounds are called alkalides and electrides , respectively. 

Polyether complexation. The solution of the above problem is to add a suitable crown ether or cryptand to the alkali metal solution. This results in complexation of the alkali cation and apparently engenders sufficient stabilization of the M+ cation for alkalide salts of type M+L.M" (L = crown or cryptand) to form as solids. Thus the existence of such compounds appears to reflect, in part, the ability of the polyether ligands to isolate the positively charged cation from the remainder of the ion pair. 

Table 6.2. Thermodynamic data for complexation of alkali metal ions by cryptands in water (Lehn Sauvage, 1975 Kauffmann, Lehn Sauvage, 1976).

In general, the cryptands (213) show a stronger correlation between thermodynamic stability and match of the metal ion for the cavity. Thermodynamic data for complexation of the alkali metal ions with a number of cryptands is summarized in Table 6.2. The data for the smaller (less flexible) cryptands 2.1.1, 2.2.1, and 2.2.2 illustrate well the occurrence of peak selectivity. 

The dissociation rates for a number of alkali metal cryptates have been obtained in methanol and the values combined with measured stability constants to yield the corresponding formation rates. The latter increase monotonically with increasing cation size (with cryptand selectivity for these ions being reflected entirely in the dissociation rates - see later) (Cox, Schneider Stroka, 1978). 

The kinetics and thermodynamics of complex formation in methanol for the interaction of cryptands 2.1.1,2.2.1 and 2.2.2 with the alkali metal... 

Table 7.1. Formation (kf) and dissociation (kd) rate constants for the alkali metal complexes of the cryptands of type (213) in methanol at 25 °C (Cox, Schneider Stroka, 1978).

Conversion of tight ion pairs into crown ether-separated ion pairs leads in many cases to increased basicity. For example, Dietrich and Lehn (1973) have shown that a homogeneous solution of sodium t-amyloxide in benzene is unable to deprotonate triphenylmethane, whereas the reaction occurs rapidly in the presence of [2.2.2]-cryptand [37]. In THF or diethyl ether, alkali metal enolates do not react with triphenyl- or diphenylmethane (Pierre et al.,... 

The discovery of crown ethers and cryptands in the late sixties opened new possibilities of cation recognition with improvement of selectivity, especially for alkali metal ions for which there is a lack of selective chelators. Then, the idea of coupling these ionophores to chromophores or fluorophores, leading to so-called chromoionophores and fluoroionophores, respectively, emerged some years later l9) As only fluorescent probes are considered in this chapter, chromoionophores will not be described. 

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