Tertiary to secondary reduction of aminomethylphosphane derived from 1-ethylpiperazine as a result of its coordination to ruthenium(II) centre : the first insight into the nature of process

Introduction of tertiary aminomethylphosphane P{CH2N(CH2CH2)2NCH2CH3}3 (B; tris{1-[4-ethyl(tetrahydro-1,4-diazino)]methyl}phosphane) to methanolic solution of [Ru(η5-C5H5)Cl(PPh3)2] (1) and NaBF4, instead of straightforward substitution of the chloride leads to concomitant cleavage of aminomethylphosphane’s P CH2 bond. The obtained complex [Ru(η5-C5H5)PH{CH2N(CH2CH2)2NCH2CH3}2(PPh3)2]BF4 (2B′) was fully characterized by spectroscopic methods ((NMR, IR, ESI-MS) and its solid state structure was determined with single crystal X-ray diffraction method. It was proven that the structure of 2B′ is similar to the previously synthesized morpholine counterpart [Ru(η5-C5H5)PH{CH2N(CH2CH2)2O}2(PPh3)2]BF4 (2A′). DFT calculations (B3LYP with the D95V(d,p) basis set for C, N, H and O and LanL2DZ with Los Alamos ECPs for Ru, P and Cl) revealed that the binding of aminomethylphosphanes to the ruthenium centre leads to the P C bonds elongation, which may finally result in breaking one of them and phosphane’s reduction from tertiary to secondary ones.