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Published on: March 19, 2020
In Situ NMR Search for Spin-Crossover in Heteroleptic Cobalt(II) Complexes
Yanina Pankratova1,2, Dmitry Aleshin1,3, Igor Nikovskiy1
1A.N. Nesmeyanov Institute of Organoelement Compounds, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vavilova Str., 28, 119991 Moscow, Russia.
Abstract:
Here we report the first successful attempt to identify spin-crossover compounds in solutions of metal complexes produced by mixing different ligands and an appropriate metal salt by variable-temperature nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Screening the spin state of a cobalt(II) ion in a series of thus obtained homoleptic and heteroleptic compounds of terpyridines (terpy) and 2,6-bis(pyrazol-3-yl)pyridines (3-bpp) by using this NMR-based approach, which only relies on the temperature behavior of chemical shifts, revealed the first cobalt(II) complexes with a 3-bpp ligand to undergo a thermally induced spin-crossover. A simple analysis of NMR spectra collected from mixtures of different compounds without their isolation or purification required by the current method of choice, the Evans technique, thus emerges as a powerful tool in a search for new spin-crossover compounds and their molecular design boosted by wide possibilities for chemical modifications in heteroleptic complexes.
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