AbstractIn contrast to the well‐documented acylating reactivity, the alkylating reactivity of the alkoxycarbonyl group, as signified by its oxocarbenium‐like resonance structure, remains almost unexplored. Herein, the first series of Co/Ni dinuclear metalloesters exhibiting the novel oxocarbenium‐like alkoxycarbonyl groups were synthesized and characterized. In these deformed alkoxycarbonyl groups, the Ccarbonyl−Oalkoxyl bonds were contracted to 1.177(11)~1.191(9) Å with the elongations of the Ccarbonyl=Ocarbonyl bonds to 1.368(13)~1.441(9) Å. Meanwhile, the O−Calkyl bonds were also elongated to 1.522(11) ~1.607(15) Å, and were by far the longest O−Calkyl bonds reported for alkoxycarbonyl groups. As triggered by the long O−Calkyl distances, the alkylating reactivity of the oxocarbenium‐like methoxycarbonyl group towards a series of C/N/O‐nucleophiles via the rare BAL2 mechanism at ambient conditions was examined. Furthermore, the homo‐etherifications of alcohols mediated by the Co/Ni dinuclear metalloesters were investigated. The yields followed the trend ethanol≫n‐propanol≫n‐butanol ≈n‐pentanol, that closely related to the structure features of the alkoxycarbonyl groups in corresponding metalloesters: while the ethoxycarbonyl group showed the reactive oxocarbenium‐like framework, the n‐propoxycarbonyl group displayed the dioxocarbenium‐like skeleton with a shorter O−Calkyl bond; In comparison, the classical frameworks with unactivated alkyl moieties were observed for n‐butoxycarbonyl and n‐pentoxycarbonyl groups.
Read full abstract