Racemization Pathway for MoO2(acac)2Favored over Ray-Dutt, Bailar, and Conte-Hippler Twists

George Dhimba, Alfred Muller, Koop Lammertsma*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Chiral cis-MoO2(acac)2racemizes via four pathways that agree with and extend upon Muetterties' topological analysis for dynamic MX2(chel)2complexes. Textbook Ray-Dutt and Bailar twists are the least favored with barriers of 27.5 and 28.7 kcal/mol, respectively. Rotating both acac ligands of the Bailar structure by 90° gives the lower Conte-Hippler twist (20.0 kcal/mol), which represents a valley-ridge inflection that invokes the trans isomer. The most favorable is a new twist that was found by 90° rotation of only one acac ligand of the Bailar structure. The gas-phase barrier of 17.4 kcal/mol for this Dhimba-Muller-Lammertsma twist further decreases upon inclusion of the effects of solvents to 16.3 kcal/mol (benzene), 16.2 kcal/mol (toluene), and 15.4 kcal/mol (chloroform), which are in excellent agreement with the reported experimental values.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)14918-14923
Number of pages6
JournalInorganic Chemistry
Volume61
Issue number38
Early online date18 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 26 Sept 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge support of the National Research Foundation (Grant 120842) and the Centre for High Performance Computing of South Africa. We thank Dr. J. E. Borger for the initial calculations.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge support of the National Research Foundation (Grant 120842) and the Centre for High Performance Computing of South Africa. We thank Dr. J. E. Borger for the initial calculations.

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