Ruthenium(II) dendrimers containing carbazole-based chromophores as branches

Three new luminescent and redox-active Ru(II) complexes containing novel dendritic polypyridine ligands have been synthesized, and their absorption spectra, luminescence properties (both at room temperature in fluid solution and at 77 K in rigid matrix), and redox behavior have been investigated. The dendritic ligands are made of 1,10-phenanthroline coordinating subunits and of carbazole groups as branching sites, The first and second generation species of this novel class of dendritic ligands (L1 and L2, respectively; see Figure 1 for their structural formulas) have been prepared and employed. The metal dendrimers investigated are [Ru(bpy)(2)(L1)](2+) (1; bpy = 2,2'-bipyridine), [Ru(bpy)(2)(L2)](2+) (2), and [Ru(L1)(3)](2+) (3; see Figure 2). For the Sake of completeness and comparison purposes, also the absorption spectra, redox behavior, and luminescence properties of L1 and L2 have been studied, together with the properties of 3,6-di(tert-butyl)carbazole (L0) and [Ru(bpy)2(phen)]2+ (4, phen = 1, 10-phenanthroline). The absorption spectra of the free dendritic ligands show features which can be assigned to the various subunits (i.e., carbazole and phenanthroline groups) and additional bands at lower energies (at lambda > 300 nm) which are assigned to carbazole-to-phenanthroline charge-transfer (CT) transitions. These latter bands are significantly red-shifted upon acid and/or zinc acetate addition. Both L1 and L2 exhibit relatively intense luminescence at room temperature in fluid solution (lifetimes in the nanosecond time scale, quantum yields of the order of 10(-2)-10(-1)) and at 77 K in rigid matrix (lifetimes in the millisecond time scale). Such a luminescence is assigned to CT states at room temperature and to phenanthroline-centered pi-pi* triplet levels at 77 K. The room-temperature luminescence of L1 and L2 is totally quenched by acid or zinc acetate. The metal dendrimers exhibit the typical absorption and luminescence properties of Ru(II) polypyridine complexes. In particular, metal-to-ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) bands dominate the visible absorption spectra, and formally triplet MLCT levels govern the excited-state properties. Excitation spectroscopy evidences that all the light absorbed by the dendritic branches is transferred with unitary efficiency to the luminescent MLCT states in 1-3, showing that the new metal dendrimers can be regarded as efficient light-harvesting antenna systems. All the free ligands and metal dendrimers exhibit a rich redox behavior (except L2 and 3, whose redox behavior was not investigated because of solubility reasons), with clearly attributable reversible carbazole- and metal-centered oxidation and polypyridine-centered reduction processes. The electronic interaction between the carbazole redox-active sites of the dendritic ligands is affected by Ru(I I) coordination.status: publishe

Optically Active Tripodal Dendritic Polyoxometalates: Synthesis, Characterization and Their Use in Asymmetric Sulfide Oxidation with Hydrogen Peroxide

A series of structurally well-defined enantiopure tripodal allyl dendritic structures bearing three amine groups have been synthesized. The hydrogenation of the allyl groups in the presence of a Pd/C catalyst gave the corresponding enantiopure n-propyl counterparts. Treatment of these n-propyl amino dendrimers with heteropolyacid H3PW12O40 and excess H2O2 gave the enantiopure n-propyl {PO4[WO(O2)2]4}3– salts. Characterization of these dendritic POM hybrids in solution by NMR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, UV/Vis spectrophotometry, circular dichroism (CD), vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) and fluorimetry indicates the presence of POM–ligand interactions and confirms their optical and chiroptical properties. The hybrid compounds selectively oxidized sulfides to the corresponding chiral sulfoxides with up to 13 % enantiomeric excess (ee), highlighting the transfer of chirality from the dendritic wedges to the inorganic cluster. The properties of the POM anion, especially its solubility and regio- and stereoselectivity, are sensitive to the structure of the cation. The catalyst was recovered by precipitation without any discernible loss in activity, selectivity or enantioselectivity over three catalytic cycles at –50 °C. Interestingly, a dendritic effect was noted in the enantioselectivity as the dendritic-POM hybrids are more selective than their non-dendritic counterparts. The ee resulting from chirality transfer to the anionic POM unit is comparable to that obtained in our previous work with monopodal dendritic polyoxometalates (14 %) despite the polyvalency of the highly charged tripodal ligand, which is rationalized by different spectroscopic methods