Palladium complexes water cleavage

Kostic et al. recently reported the use of various palladium(II) aqua complexes as catalysts for the hydration of nitriles.456 crossrefil. 34 Reactivity of coordination These complexes, some of which are shown in Figure 36, also catalyze hydrolytic cleavage of peptides, decomposition of urea to carbon dioxide and ammonia, and alcoholysis of urea to ammonia and various carbamate esters.420-424, 427,429,456,457 Qggj-jy palladium(II) aqua complexes are versatile catalysts for hydrolytic reactions. Their catalytic properties arise from the presence of labile water or other solvent ligands which can be displaced by a substrate. In many cases the coordinated substrate becomes activated toward nucleophilic additions of water/hydroxide or alcohols. New palladium(II) complexes cis-[Pd(dtod)Cl2] and c - Pd(dtod)(sol)2]2+ contain the bidentate ligand 3,6-dithiaoctane-l,8-diol (dtod) and unidentate ligands, chloride anions, or the solvent (sol) molecules. The latter complex is an efficient catalyst for the hydration and methanolysis of nitriles, reactions shown in Equation (3) 435... 

Finally, a third means of ligand formation from an imidazolium cation, described by Dupont and co-workers, should be mentioned here [34]. They investigated the hydrodimerization/telomerization of 1,3-butadiene with palladium(II) compounds in [BMIM][BF4] and described the activation of the catalyst precursor complex [BMIM]2[PdCl4] by a palladium(lV) compound formed by oxidative addition of the imidazolium nitrogen atom and the alkyl group with cleavage of the C-N bond of the [BMIM] ion, resulting in bis(methyHmidazole) dichloropalladate (Scheme 5.2-5). However, this reaction was only observed in the presence of water. 

D.xi.a. Hydrolysis and Hydration. The electrophilicity of cationic palladium(II) complexes has been taken advantage of in an interesting biomimetic method of selective cleavage of peptide bonds at histidine, methionine, or tryptophane residues. Further discrimination is possible as peptides with two former amino acids are cleaved in aqueous solution but not cleaved in acetone, while those with tryptophane are cleaved only in acetone in the presence of water. The mechanism of cleavage at tryptophane is particularly interesting as it involves the electrophilic ip o-paUadation of indole ring, while the remaining coordination site of Pd in the ip/ro-cyclopalladated complex is used for the electrophilic activation of carbonyl (Scheme 91). 

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