The Acidity of Coordinated Ligands

There have been a number of isolated studies of metal-ion catalyzed nucleophilic reactions of other groupings. Particularly interesting is the induced nucleophilic attack on olefins. Hydration is normally very sluggish. Enzymes can speed up such reactions. Aconitase, an iron-containing enzyme, catalyzes the isomerization of citric acid to isocitric acid, through the intermediacy of cis-aconitic acid. A possible mechanism has been suggested based on the following Co(III) model chemistry. Rapid cyclization of the maleate ester produces Ai and AS chelated malate half ester  

The process is 10 fold faster than hydration of uncoordinated half-ester. More details and a full kinetic scheme are provided in Ref. 61. 

Generally, the higher the positive charge, the greater the enhancement of the ionization con-  

One of the very few exceptions to the rule that the acidity of the complexed ligand exceeds that of the free ligands involves the Ru(II) complexes shown in Table 6.5. It is believed that back bonding from the filled iig orbitals of Ru(II) to unoccupied tt-antibonding orbitals of the ligands more than compensates for the usual electrostatic effects of the metal that makes the nitrogen less basic. This tt-bonding is less likely with the Ru(III) complex and its is lower than that for the protonated pyrazine (see also Sec. 6.3.3. for the effects of Ru(II) and Ru(III) on hydrolysis of nitriles).  

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