Herein, the synthesis and chemistry of P-functional tricyclic 1,4-dihydro-1,4-diphosphinines is described, following a recent communication on their use as precursors of 1,4-diphosphinines. In particular, ring formation of imidazole-2thione-based tricyclic 1,4-dihydro-1,4-diphosphinines 4a,b {-[P(Me 2 N)IMS R,R ] 2 -; IMS R,R = 1,3-dialkylimidazole-2-thione-4-yl}, first detected as side products, has been optimized to access 4d-f {-[P(Et 2 N)IMS R,R ] 2 -; IMS R,R = 1,3-dialkylimidazole-2-thione-4-yl}. The 1,4-dihydro-1,4-dichloro-1,4-diphosphinines 8a,b {-[P(Cl)IMS R,R ] 2 -; IMS R,R = 1,3-dialkylimidazole-2-thione-4-yl}, easily obtained from 4, are ideal starting materials for P-substituted products 9a-c (P-R; R = nBu, TMSC 2 -). The P-diorgano- [a] azole-2-derivatives, we recently described the first examples of tricyclic imidazole-2-thiones V having P-diethylamino groups ( Figure 1). [15] In the same short report, we also demonstrated a reductive conversion of P-Cl functional 1,4-dihydro-1,4-diphosphinines to give first examples of isolable 1,4-diphosphinines. [15] Following this short communication, we here report on detailed investigations on optimized synthetic protocols, as well as broad reactivity studies of P-functional tricyclic 1,4-dihydro-1,4-diphosphinines, to pave the way for their future use as unique ligands in coordination chemistry. Some reaction pathways and bonding situations have also been examined using DFT calculations.
Results and DiscussionRecently, we demonstrated that backbone phosphanylation of imidazole-2-thiones allows access to acyclic dialkylaminobis(imidazole-2-thione-4-yl)phosphanes. [14] But in this study only imidazole-2-thiones with secondary or tertiary alkyl groups on either N-atoms (or at least on one) were used, and the final products were obtained in excellent yields without any byproducts. Interestingly, when 1,3-dimethyl imidazole-2-thione 1a, n-butyllithium, and dichloro(dimethylamino)phosphane 2a are used in THF, a white precipitate forms alongside the main product 3a (Scheme 1). The 31 P NMR spectrum shows the signal for the acyclic compound 3a (δ =14.4 ppm) and two resonance signals at δ = 9.8 and 10.2 ppm that are assigned to the cis and trans stereoisomers of 1,4-dihydro-1,4-diphosphinines 4a,a′ (ratio 1:1.3), according to the relative positioning of the P-NMe 2 groups. The trans isomer of 4a is easily isolated from the isomeric mixture by washing the precipitate with THF, because of the higher solubility of the cis isomer, and hence, it can be unambiguously characterized, possessing a 31 P resonance at NMR spectrum at 9.4 ppm (CDCl 3 ); the value is slightly upfieldshifted, compared with the reported derivatives IV (15.1-15.6 ppm [9] ).When the reaction is performed using 1,3-diethyl-imidazole-2-thione 1b, n-butyllithium and dichloro(dimethylamino)phosphane under the same conditions, a mixture of 3b and 4b is obtained (ratio 3:1), which is separable by column chromatography. The 31 P{ 1 H} NMR spectra of 3b and 4b (in CDCl 3 ) show similar chemical shifts as f...