Jia Wei-Guo, Zhi Xue-Ting, Li Xiao-Dong, Zhou Jun-Peng, Zhong Rui, Yu Haibo, Lee Richmond
The Key Laboratory of Functional Molecular Solids, Ministry of Education, Anhui Laboratory of Molecular-Based Materials (State Key Laboratory Cultivation Base), College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu 241002, China.
State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Science, Fuzhou 350002, China.
Inorg Chem. 2021 Apr 5;60(7):4313-4321. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c00059. Epub 2021 Mar 24.
A mild and environmentally friendly method to synthesize half-sandwich ruthenium complexes through the Wittig reaction between an aldehyde-tagged half-sandwich ruthenium complex and phosphorus ylide mechanochemically is reported herein. The mechanochemical synthesis of valuable half-sandwich ruthenium complexes resulted in a fast reaction, good yield with simple workup, and the avoidance of harsh reaction conditions and organic solvents. The synthesized half-sandwich ruthenium complexes exhibited high catalytic activity for transfer hydrogenation of ketones using 2-propanol as the hydrogen source and solvent. Density functional theory was carried out to propose a mechanism for the transfer hydrogenation process. The modeling suggests the importance of the labile -cymene ligand in modulating the reactivity of the catalyst.
