Synthesis, electronic structure and catalytic activity of ruthenium-iodo-carbonyl complexes with thioether containing NNS donor ligand

The ruthenium carbonyl complexes 1 and 2 with redox noninnocent NNS donor ligand, 1-methyl-2-{(o-thiomethyl)phenylazo}imidazole (L) have been synthesized and characterized by various analytical and spectroscopic (IR, UV–Vis and 1H NMR) techniques. The complexes exhibit a quasi-reversible one electron Ru(II)/Ru(III) oxidation couple at 1.11 V for 1 and 0.76 V for 2 along with two successive one electron ligand reductions. Catalytic activity of the compounds has been investigated to the oxidation of PhCH2OH to PhCHO, 2-butanol (C4H9OH) to 2-butanone, 1-phenylethanol (PhC2H4OH) to acetophenone, cyclopentanol (C5H9OH) to cyclopentanone, cyclohexanol to cyclohexanone, cycloheptanol to cycloheptanone and cycloctanol to cycloctanone using N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMO) as oxidant. The catalytic efficiency of 2 is greater than complex 1 and well correlate with the metal oxidation potential. DFT, NBO and TDDFT calculations in DFT/B3LYP/6-31G(d)/lanL2TZ(f) method are employed to interpret the structural and electronic features of the complexes.