Dioxygen Reduction by a Pd(0)–Hydroquinone Diphosphine Complex

Abstract

A novel p-terphenyl diphosphine ligand was synthesized with a noninnocent hydroquinone moiety as the central arene (1-H). Pseudo-tetrahedral 4-coordinate Ni^0 and Pd^0–quinone (2 and 3, respectively) complexes proved accessible by metalating 1-H with the corresponding M(OAc)_2 precursors. O_2 does not react with the Pd^0–quinone species (3) and protonation occurs at the quinone moiety indicating that the coordinated oxidized quinonoid moiety prevents reactivity at the metal. A 2-coordinate Pd^0–hydroquinone complex (4-H) was prepared using a one-pot metalation with Pd^(II) followed by reduction. The reduced quinonoid moiety in 4-H shows metal-coupled reactivity with small molecules. 4-H was capable of reducing a variety of substrates including dioxygen, nitric oxide, nitrous oxide, 1-azido adamantane, trimethylamine n-oxide, and 1,4-benzoquinone quantitatively producing 3 as the Pd-containing reaction product. Mechanistic investigations of dioxygen reduction revealed that the reaction proceeds through a η^2-peroxo intermediate (Int1) at low temperatures followed by subsequent ligand oxidation at higher temperatures in a reaction that consumed half an equivalent of O_2 and produced water as a final oxygenic byproduct. Control compounds with methyl protected phenolic moieties (4-Me), displaying a Ag^I center incapable of O_2 binding (7-H) or a cationic Pd–H motif (6-H) allowed for the independent examination of potential reaction pathways. The reaction of 4-Me with dioxygen at low temperature produces a species (8-Me) analogous to Int1 demonstrating that initial dioxygen activation is an inner sphere Pd-based process where the hydroquinone moiety only subsequently participates in the reduction of O_2, at higher temperatures, by H^+/e^– transfers.

Files

Additional details