Pyridine activation by inexpensive iron catalysts has great utility, but the steps through which iron species can break the strong (105-111 kcal/mol) C-H bonds of pyridine substrates are unknown. In this work, we report the rapid room-temperature cleavage of C-H bonds in pyridine, 4-tertbutylpyridine, and 2-phenylpyridine by an iron(I) species, to give well-characterized iron(II) products. In addition, 4-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP) undergoes room-temperature C-N bond cleavage, which forms a dimethylamidoiron(II) complex and a pyridyl-bridged tetrairon(II) square. These facile bond-cleaving reactions are proposed to occur through intermediates having a twoelectron reduced pyridine that bridges two iron centers. Thus, the redox non-innocence of the pyridine can play a key role in enabling high regioselectivity for difficult reactions.
Graphical abstractAn iron(I) complex can activate C-H and C-N bonds in pyridines, using a mechanism that takes advantage of pyridine's redox activity.
KeywordsPyridine; Iron; Redox-Active; Bond Cleavage Pyridines are widespread in pharmaceuticals, natural products, and polymers, and therefore their expedient synthesis is crucial. [1] However, pyridines are relatively unreactive in the absence of prior activation. [2] Direct cleavage of C-H bonds in unfunctionalized pyridines is uncommon, but has made substantial progress recently. [3] A recent exciting development has been the C-H arylation of pyridines using catalytic mixtures generated in situ from simple iron salts and an excess of Grignard reagent. [4] This recipe presumably generates reduced Correspondence to: Patrick L. Holland. a These authors contributed to this work equally, and should be considered co-first authors.Supporting information for this article can be found under: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.XXXX
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Author ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript iron species that are the catalysts, but little is known about reduced iron-pyridine compounds and what stoichiometric steps to expect under these conditions. In this communication, we report well-characterized iron products that result from pyridine C-H bond cleavage. We also show an unprecedented C-N bond cleavage of 4-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP) and construct a reasonable mechanistic scaffold that is based on the ability of pyridines to accept charge from low-valent iron.Pyridines are well-known redox-active ligands. [5] We have shown that the addition of one or more equiv of pyridine to the iron(I) complex LFe(C 6 H 6 ) (L = β-diketiminate ligand, shown in Scheme 1) yields products in which the pyridine ligands are reduced by 1-2 electrons. [6] However, we have now discovered that addition of smaller amounts of pyridine leads to formation of a surprising new compound (1). Solutions of 1 are in equilibrium with the previously characterized pyridine-bound complexes and with LFe(C 6 H 6 ), as shown by 1 H NMR spectra of C 6 D 6 solutions of 1 with various amounts of pyridine ( Figure S5). Compound 1 can be isolated by...