Publication:

The role of 8-quinolinyl moieties in tuning the reactivity of palladium(II) complexes: a kinetic and mechanistic study

The rate and mechanism of chloride substitution from Pd(II) complexes, chlorobis-(2-pyridylmethyl)aminepalladium(II), 1, chloro-8-[(2-pyridylmethyl)amino]quinolinepalladium(II), 2, chloro-N-(2-pyridinylmethylene)-8-quinolinaminepalladium(II), 3, and chlorobis(8-quinolinyl)aminepalladium(II), 4, are reported. The labile chloride was substituted from the complexes by thiourea nucleophiles viz, thiourea (Tu), N,N′-dimethylthiourea (Dmtu) and N,N,N′,N′-tetramethylthiourea (Tmtu). The reactions were monitored under pseudo-first-order conditions in methanol using stopped-flow spectrophotometry as a function of concentration and temperature. All the reactions obeyed the rate law kobs = k2[Nu] following the order 1 > 3 > 2 > 4 with 4 exhibiting the slowest rate of substitution due to the stronger σ-donor effect of 8-quinolyl moiety of the coordinated ligand, which makes the Pd center more electron-rich. This slows the nucleophilic attack by the nucleophiles. The values of the thermodynamic parameters (ΔH# and ΔS#) support an associative substitution mechanism. The trends in the DFT calculated data support the experimentally observed order of the reactivity of the complexes.