Ruthenium-bipyridine complexes exchange reaction

Mechanism 2 requires deprotonation of a ligand, and dissociation of the hydrogen bound to the C(3) atom was suggested to be the slow step for the reaction of tris(2,2 -bipyridine)ruthenium(III) in base (12). This would require a mechanism for the 1,10-phenanthroline complexes different from that of the 2,2 -bipyridine complexes, but, from the data in Table II as illustrated in Figs. 3-5, this seems unlikely. The requirement of a different mechanism is based upon the significant differences in rates of D/H exchange as measured by 1H NMR for the tris(diimine)... 

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