1,2-Addition and cycloaddition reactions of niobium bis(imido) and oxo imido complexes

The bis(imido) complexes (BDI)Nb((NBu)-Bu-t)(2) and (BDI)Nb((NBu)-Bu-t)(NAr) (BDI = N,N '-bis(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)-3,5-dimethyl-beta-diketiminate; Ar = 2,6-diisopropylphenyl) were shown to engage in 1,2-addition and [2 + 2] cycloaddition reactions with a wide variety of substrates. Reaction of the bis(imido) complexes with dihydrogen, silanes, and boranes yielded hydrido-amido-imido complexes via 1,2-addition across Nb-imido pi-bonds; some of these complexes were shown to further react via insertion of carbon dioxide to give formate-amido-imido products. Similarly, reaction of (BDI)Nb((NBu)-Bu-t)(2) with tert-butylacetylene yielded an acetylide-amido-imido complex. In contrast to these results, many related mono(imido) Nb BDI complexes do not exhibit 1,2-addition reactivity, suggesting that pi-loading plays an important role in activating the Nb-N pi-bonds toward addition. The same bis(imido) complexes were also shown to engage in [2 + 2] cycloaddition reactions with oxygen- and sulfur-containing heteroallenes to give carbamate- and thiocarbamate-imido complexes: some of these complexes readily dimerized to give bis-mu-sulfido, bis-mu-iminodicarboxylate, and bis-mu-carbonate complexes. The mononuclear carbamate imido complex (BDI)Nb(NAr)(N(Bu-t)CO2) (12) could be induced to eject tert-butylisocyanate to generate a four-coordinate terminal oxo imido intermediate, which could be trapped as the five-coordinate pyridine or DMAP adduct. The DMAP adducted oxo imido complex (BDI)NbO(NAr)(DMAP) (16) was shown to engage in 1,2-addition of silanes across the Nb-oxo pi-bond; this represents a new reaction pathway in group 5 chemistry.