Chiral tetranuclear and dinuclear copper(ii) complexes for TEMPO-mediated aerobic oxidation of alcohols: are four metal centres better than two?

The one-pot reaction of 3,5-di-tert-butyl-2-hydroxybenzaldehyde, (R)-2-aminoglycinol and Cu(OAc)2·2H2O in a 1 : 1 : 1 ratio in the presence of triethylamine led to the isolation of X-ray quality crystals of the chiral complex (R)- in high yield. The single crystal structure of (R)- reveals a tetranuclear copper(ii) complex that contains a {Cu4(μ-O)2(μ3-O)2N4O4} core. A reaction using (1S,2R)-2-amino-1,2-diphenylethanol as precursor under the same conditions generated the chiral complex (S,R)-; its structure was determined by single crystal X-ray crystallography and was found to contain a {Cu2(μ-O)2N2O2} core. Both (R)- and (S,R)- have been used for catalytic aerobic oxidation of benzylic alcohols in combination with the TEMPO (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinyl-1-oxyl) radical. (R)- selectively catalyses the conversion of various aromatic primary alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes with high yields (99%) and TONs (770) in the air, while (S,R)- exhibits less promising catalytic performance under the same reaction conditions. The role of the cluster structures in (R)- and (S,R)- in controlling the reactivity towards aerobic oxidation reactions is discussed.