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Updated: Mar 14, 2026

Palladium N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes: Synthesis from Benzimidazolium Salts and Catalytic Activity in Carbon-carbon Bond-forming Reactions
Published on: July 30, 2017
Protic N-Heterocyclic Carbene Versus Pyrazole: Rigorous Comparison of Proton- and Electron-Donating Abilities in a
Tatsuro Toda1, Akihiro Yoshinari1, Takao Ikariya2
1Department of Chemical Science and Engineering, School of Materials and Chemical Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2 12-1 E4-1 O-okayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 152-8552, Japan.
Abstract:
Evaluation of the acidity of proton-responsive ligands such as protic N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) bearing an NH-wingtip provides a key to understanding the metal-ligand cooperation in enzymatic and artificial catalysis. Here, we design a CNN pincer-type ruthenium complex 2 bearing protic NHC and isoelectronic pyrazole units in a symmetrical skeleton, to compare their acidities and electron-donating abilities. The synthesis is achieved by direct C-H metalation of 2-(imidazol-1-yl)-6-(pyrazol-3-yl)pyridine with [RuCl2 (PPh3 )3 ]. 15 N-Labeling experiments confirm that deprotonation of 2 occurs first at the pyrazole side, indicating clearly that the protic pyrazole is more acidic than the NHC group. The electrochemical measurements as well as derivatization to carbonyl complexes demonstrate that the protic NHC is more electron-donating than pyrazole in both protonated and deprotonated forms.
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