Chiral Nickel(II) Binuclear Complexes: Targeted Diastereoselective Electrosynthesis

Ni(II) complexes containing (S)-o-[N-(N-benzylprolyl)amino]benzophenone as an auxiliary chiral moiety in the form of a Schiff base with α-amino acids (α-amino acid = glycine, alanine, dehydroalanine; Gly-Ni, Ala-Ni, and Δ-Ala-Ni) were subjected to various types of electrochemical activation (oxidation, reduction, and a treatment with electrogenerated base), affording regio- and diastereoselective synthesis of novel types of binuclear Ni(II) complexes via C–C coupling. New compounds were fully characterized by HRMS, MALDI-TOF, CD, and 1H and 13C NMR (including two-dimensional techniques) spectroscopy; two complexes were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis. The structures of the novel complexes obtained via electrosynthesis completely match the predictions (made from preliminary voltammetric investigations of the starting complexes as well as from DFT estimations of the energy and symmetry of their frontier molecular orbitals) about the nature of chemical transformations which may follow the electron transfer steps. Electrochemical oxidation of Gly-Ni and Ala-Ni allows access to new dimeric complexes linked via benzophenone moieties in the Ni(II) coordination environment. These new binuclear Ni(II) complexes are of interest as chiral redox mediators for both oxidative and reductive transformations, since they exhibit quasi-reversible electrochemical behavior (their reduced and oxidized forms are stable, at least on the time scale of cyclic voltammetry). Three other binuclear Ni(II) complexes which were obtained via reductive dimerization of the Δ-Ala-Ni complex, via nucleophilic addition of electrochemically deprotonated Gly-Ni to Δ-Ala-Ni, and via oxidative electrochemical dimerization of deprotonated Gly-Ni are of interest as convenient precursors for the stereoselective preparation of diamino dicarboxylic acids HO(O)CCH(NH2)(CH2)n(NH2)CHC(O)OH (n = 2–0), since the obtained binuclear Ni(II)–Schiff base complexes can be easily disassembled using aqueous HCl in methanol.