Synthesis, characterization and catalytic activity of dioxidouranium(VI) complexes of ONNO tetradentate Mannich bases

Abstract

The reaction of dibasic tetradentate ONNO donor Mannich bases, derived from ethylenediamine and 2,4–di–tert–butylphenol (H2L1) (I), 2,4–di–methylphenol (H2L2) (II), 2–tert–butyl–4–methylphenol (H2L3) (III) and 2,4–di–chlorophenol (H2L4) (IV), with UVIO2(MeCOO)2·2H2O in a 1:1 M ratio in refluxing MeOH gave the corresponding mononuclear trans-dioxidouranium(VI) complexes of the type trans-[UVIO2L(MeOH)] (H2L = H2L1 to H2L4) (1–4). The synthesized complexes are stable in air, reddish-brown in color and soluble in most solvents. These complexes are characterized by elemental analysis, various spectroscopic (FT-IR, UV/Vis, 1H and 13C NMR) techniques and single-crystal X-ray analysis of 3 and 4. The complexes adopt distorted pentagonal bipyramidal geometry around the metal centre. The ligand acts as tetradentate, coordinating through two phenolato oxygen and two imino nitrogen atoms; two oxido groups are trans to each other. These complexes are used as catalysts to study the oxidative bromination of thymol and styrene. The catalytic oxidative bromination of thymol resulted in the formation of three products namely, 2-bromothymol, 4-bromothymol and 2,4-dibromothymol while oxidative bromination of styrene gave two products, 2-bromo-1-phenylethane-1-ol and 1-phenylethane-1,2-diol. In order to find out the optimized reaction conditions for the fixed concentration (10 mmol) of substrate, effects of different amounts of catalyst, KBr, HClO4, and oxidant (H2O2) have been investigated. Under the optimized reaction conditions, all the complexes have shown good catalytic potentials for the oxidative bromination of substrates, establishing the functional similarity to vanadium dependent haloperoxidases. Changes in the UV–visible absorption spectra of dioxidouranium(VI) complexes upon addition of H2O2 suggest the formation of the corresponding oxidoperoxidouranium(VI) complexes.