Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: 1,2-Diols are elemental building blocks in organic synthesis. The standard preparation methods involve the reductive coupling of ketones such as acetone, often using in situ reduced electropositive metal species. Uranium chloride was shown previously to allow for mechanistic studies of the pinacol coupling reaction, but not for direct isolation of intermediates. In this study, using three well-defined uranium(III) complexes with different cyclopentadienyl ligands, pinacol coupling of acetone was observed resulting in a pinacolate moiety between two uranium(IV) compounds. The uranium pinacolate complexes were characterised by IR, NMR, mass spectrometry and in one case by single crystal x-ray diffraction. This first direct structural characterisation of the reaction product confirms the previously suggested role of metallapinacolates in the pinacol coupling mechanism. Mass spectrometry additionally confirmed the proposed formation of uranium hydroxide complexes in the subsequent hydrolysis step releasing the pinacol.
Authors: León Hillers, Lisa Vondung
Institution: Universität Hamburg
Language: English
Subfield: Organic Chemistry
Field: Chemistry
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,960
OpenAlex ID: W4415660210