Effect of chelate dynamics on water exchange reactions of paramagnetic aminopolycarboxylate complexes

Because of our interest in evaluating a possible relationship between complex dynamics and water exchange reactivity, we performed (1)H NMR studies on the paramagnetic aminopolycarboxylate complexes Fe (II)-TMDTA and Fe (II)-CyDTA and their diamagnetic analogues Zn (II)-TMDTA and Zn (II)-CyDTA. Whereas a fast Delta-Lambda isomerization was observed for the TMDTA species, no acetate scrambling between in-plane and out-of-plane positions is accessible for any of the CyDTA complexes because the rigid ligand backbone prevents any configurational changes in the chelate system. In variable-temperature (1)H NMR studies, no evidence of spectral coalescence due to nitrogen inversion was found for any of the complexes in the available temperature range. The TMDTA complexes exhibit the known solution behavior of EDTA, whereas the CyDTA complexes adopt static solution structures. Comparing the exchange kinetics of flexible EDTA-type complexes and static CyDTA complexes appears to be a suitable method for evaluating the effect of ligand dynamics on the overall reactivity. In order to assess information concerning the rates and mechanism of water exchange, we performed variable-temperature and -pressure (17)O NMR studies of Ni (II)-CyDTA, Fe (II)-CyDTA, and Mn (II)-CyDTA. For Ni (II)-CyDTA, no significant effects on line widths or chemical shifts were apparent, indicating either the absence of any chemical exchange or the existence of a very small amount of the water-coordinated complex in solution. For [Fe (II)(CyDTA)(H 2O)] (2-) and [Mn (II)(CyDTA)(H 2O)] (2-), exchange rate constant values of (1.1 +/- 0.3) x 10 (6) and (1.4 +/- 0.2) x 10 (8) s (-1), respectively, at 298 K were determined from fits to resonance-shift and line-broadening data. A relationship between chelate dynamics and reactivity seems to be operative, since the CyDTA complexes exhibited significantly slower reactions than their EDTA counterparts. The variable-pressure (17)O NMR measurements for [Mn (II)(CyDTA)(H 2O)] (2-) yielded an activation volume of +9.4 +/- 0.9 cm (3) mol (-1). The mechanism is reliably assigned as a dissociative interchange (I d) mechanism with a pronounced dissociation of the leaving water molecule in the transition state. In the case of [Fe (II)(CyDTA)(H 2O)] (2-), no suitable experimental conditions for variable-pressure measurements were accessible.