Two new crystal structures of eight-and ten-membered cyclic bisanisylphosphonothioyl disulfanes, namely 2,5-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,6,3,4,2 5 ,5 5 -dioxadithiadiphosphocane-2,5-dithione, C 16 H 18 O 4 P 2 S 4 , and 2,5-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,6,3,4,2 5 ,5 5 -dioxadithiadiphosphecane-2,5-dithione, C 18 H 22 O 4 P 2 S 4 , have been determined and compared to structures of the ferrocenyl analogues. The eight-membered rings have similar conformations (TBC) but the tenmembered macrocycles are differently puckered. Structural parameters of the relevant SPSSPS motif have been analysed and are discussed in detail. Compound 1 was refined as an inversion twin and 2 was refined as a twocomponent rotational twin.
Chemical contextThe most widely used sulfur-transfer agents for thionation of carbonyl compounds are the four-membered 2,4-dianisyl-1,3-dithiadiphosphetane disulfide dimer [AnP(-S)S] 2 and the 2,4-diferrocenyl-1,3-dithiadiphosphetane disulfide dimer [FcP(-S)S] 2 , i.e. Lawesson reagent LR (Jesberger et al., 2003) and ferrocenyl Lawesson reagent fLR (Foreman et al., 1996). However, thiophosphine oxides (AnPSO or FcPSO) separating as cyclic trimers during thionation reactions are usually unwanted side-products. On the other hand, the corresponding alkoxyphosphinodithioic acids, i.e. An(RO)P(S)SH and Fc(RO)P(S)SH, obtained in a simple reaction between LR or fLR and alcohols, are of considerable interest because they form a plethora of structurally interesting chelate complexes with metal ions (van Zyl & Woollins, 2013).The reactions between Lawesson's reagent and diols/ diphenols have been successfully involved in the preparation of bis(anisylphosphonodithioic) acid derivatives and among them the unique eight-, nine-and ten-membered cyclic bisanisylphosphonothioyl disulfanes (Przychodzeń , 2004). A high-yielding formation of these medium-sized cyclic disulfanes upon oxidation of bis(anisylphosphonodithtioic) acid salts by iodine proceeding without oligomeric by-products may be attributed to their fixed structure, containing the most preferred a zigzag motif of the SPSSPS unit. Slightly modified procedures with respect to the original method have recently been applied for the synthesis of related cyclic bis(ferrocenylphosphonothioyl)disulfanes, e.g. eight-membered 1a (Pillay et al., 2015) and ten-membered 2a (Hua et al., 2017) and their crystal structures have been determined. Here we report ISSN 2056-9890 crystal structures compounds 1 and 2, containing anisyl groups instead of the ferrocenyl moiety.
Structural commentaryViews of molecular structures and atom-labeling scheme for 1 and 2 are given in Figs. 1 and 2, respectively. Compound 1 crystallizes in the P4 3 2 1 2 space group with a half-molecule in the asymmetric unit. It follows that the molecule obeys point group symmetry described by Schoenflies symbol C 2 (or symbol 2 in international notation). The related ferrocenyl compound 1a crystallizes in space group C2/c with non-typical three and half independent molecules in the asymmetric unit (Z = 28), which com...