Syntheses, structures and catalytic activities of molybdenum carbonyl complexes based on pyridine-imine ligands

Abstract

Thermal treatment of pyridine imines [C5H4N-2-C(H)=N-C6H4-R] [R = H (1), CH3 (2), OMe (3), CF3 (4), Cl (5), Br (6)] with Mo(CO)6 in refluxing toluene provided six novel mononuclear molybdenum carbonyl complexes of the type [(η2-2-C5H4N)CH=N(C6H4-4-R)]Mo(CO)4 [R = H (7); CH3 (8); OMe (9); CF3 (10); Cl (11); Br (12)]. All of these complexes were separated by chromatography and fully characterized by elemental analysis, IR, and NMR spectroscopy. The crystal structures of complexes 7, 8 and 10 were determined by X-ray crystal diffraction analysis. In addition, the catalytic performance of these complexes was also tested, and it was found that these complexes had obvious catalytic activity on Friedel–Crafts reactions of aromatic compounds with a variety of acylation reagents.