Three one-pot syntheses leading to four examples of in situ ligand transformations are presented. These in situ reactions involve various transformations of 2-(N'-dicyanomethylene-hydrazino)-benzoic acid (DHB). The resulting ligands enabled the preparation of three new coordination compounds, which were fully characterized by infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and single crystal X-ray diffraction. The complex, [Mn(III)(Lig-I)(CH(3)OH)Cl] (1), was prepared in a one-pot synthesis in which the aryl hydrazone ligand, (Lig-I)(2-), was formed by the amination of DHB resulting from the nucleophilic attack of an amino group of ethylenediamine. The linear, mixed-valence trinuclear complex, (Et(3)NH)(4)[Mn(III)(2)Mn(II)(mu-OH)(2)(Lig-II)(2)(HLig-II)(2)] (2), was synthesized using a preparation involving the in situ reaction of azide and a nitrile of DHB. Larger species can also be prepared using this technique. In a reaction involving two different in situ ligand formations, the cyclocondensation of two DHB molecules and the partial hydrolysis of a nitrile of DHB, the first example of a tetradecanuclear Mn(II) aggregate, (H(3)O)(4)[Mn(II)(14)(mu(6)-CO(3))(mu(3)-OH)(6)(HLig-III)(6)(HLig-IV)(3)(OH(2))(3)] x 92 MeCN (3), was isolated and characterized. Magnetic measurements on 2 indicate the presence of intramolecular and intermolecular antiferromagnetic interactions (J(1)/k(B) = -9.5(1) K, g = 1.95(2), and zJ'/k(B) = -0.37(5) K) while those on 3 suggest the presence of dominating antiferromagnetic interactions.

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