The possibility of constructing tubular metal-organic structures with aid of weak hydrogen-bonding interactions between suitably designed metallacycles was explored. For this purpose, the new heteroditopic ligand (4-NH 2 C 6 H 4 )CHpz 2 (L1) was prepared in good (75 %) yield by a one-pot procedure starting from commercial 4-acetamidobenzaldehyde. The equimolar reactions between L1 and various silver(I) salts gave the intended 1:1 complexes in which the metallacycles were assembled into tubes. However, the exact nature of the assem- [a] Scheme 1. Some heteroditopic heteroscorpionate ligands (top) and a sampling of supramolecular isomers formed after metal coordination (bottom).
Results and Discussion
SynthesisThe new ligand (4-H 2 NC 6 H 4 )CHpz 2 (L1) was prepared by two different routes, as summarized in Scheme 2. Of the two pathways, Method A (Scheme 2, top) is preferred, because a 75 % yield can be obtained after a one-pot, two-step reaction sequence starting from commercial and inexpensive reagents. The yield of the CoCl 2 -catalyzed Peterson rearrangement [16] between the aldehyde and S(O)pz 2 was improved by 10-20 % by using an excess of S(O)pz 2 (relative to cases in which a 1:1 stoichiometric ratio of reagents was used). It is also noted that the rate of hydrolysis of the intermediate, {4-[CH 3 C(O)NH]C 6 H 4 }-CHpz 2 , is greatly enhanced in aqueous solution with respect to in solvent mixtures (THF/water or methanol/water). That is, after monitoring of the amide deprotection reaction by TLC, the rate of hydrolysis was observed to increase with water content of the solvent mixture. The deprotection reaction did not proceed to any appreciable extent when mixtures of NaOH (or KOH) and the intermediate were heated at reflux in dry MeOH over the course of a day, but the reaction was complete within hours when only water was used as a solvent. The ligand has significant solubility in water and in basic solution; this slightly complicates its extraction into organic solvents. That is, yields can be artificially low if care is not taken to ensure complete extraction by using numerous aliquots of organic solvent (ethyl acetate was particularly effective) and by checking the aqueous layer for product by TLC.