Abstract
Refluxing azoimine ligand containing terminal acetylene group (L = C6H5N=NC(COCH3)=NC6H4C equivalent to CH) with RuCl3.3H(2)O in ethanol resulted hydrating the terminal acetylene group to the corresponding enol form C6H5N=N-C(COCH3)=NC6H4C(OH)=CH2 (L1), ketone form C6H5N=NC(COCH3)=NC6H4COCH3 (L2) and vinyl chloride: C6H5N=N=C(COCH3)=N-C6H4C(Cl)=CH2 (L3) via Markovnikov selectivity. Ruthenium complexes of the later ligands and alpha-diamines of the formula trans-[Ru(N-N)(Y)Cl-2] (Y = L1, N-N = 4,4 '-dimethoxy-2,2 '-bipyridine; dmeb (1), 1,10-phenanthroline; phen (2), 3,4,7,8-tetramethyl-1,10-phenanthroline; tmphen (3), Y = L2, N-N = dmeb (4), phen (5), tmphen (6)) were synthesized from L, N-N ligands and RuCl3.3H(2)O. Complexes 1-6 were characterized by spectroscopic (IR, UV-Vis, H-1, C-13 NMR, DEPT-135) and electrochemistry techniques. The crystal structures of trans-[Ru(tmphen)(L1)Cl-2] (3) and trans-[Ru(bpy)(L3)Cl-2] (7) were determined and found to have distorted octahedral geometry. The catalytic activity of 3 towards the hydration of cinnamaldehyde is reported. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.