Abstract:
Carbohydrate derivatives are as part of the so-called ''chiral pool'' not only basic materials for the synthesis of chiral compounds but have also been increasingly used als chiral ligands in transition metal chemistry in the last few years.
Since their discovery by Fischer and Oefele in the 1950ties, arene chromium tricarbonyl complexes have been widely used in synthetic organic chemistry. The complexation with a Cr(CO)3 fragment allows reactions, e.g. the nucleophilic aromatic substitution or the deprotonation at the benzylic position, which is without the complexation either not possible or only under rough conditions. These features were often used in the synthesis of various natural compounds, particularly those with a highly substituted benzene or cyclohexane backbone.
Aim of this work was the synthesis of new carbohydrate derivative ligands for transition metal complexes. Therefore three different systems were applied as ligands for transition metals:
For the specific complexation with Cr(CO)3, different phenyl glycosides were converted into the appropriate carbohydrate substituted arene chromium tricarbonyl complexes, which were usually crystalline products suitable for single crystal x-ray analysis. In these crystal structures numerous so-called non classical hydrogen bonds were found between the oxygen atoms of the carbonyl functions at the chromium and hydrogen atoms, both between neighbouring molecules and within the same molecule.
Starting from glucosamine, bidentate ligands were synthesized where the sugar ring is directly involved in complexation via the amino function. With the intention to add a second donor function, the glucosamine was glycosilated with hydroxypyridine as well as with pyrocatechol.
The connection of a monosaccharide with a terpyridine substituent as a tridentate nitrogen ligand offers the possibility to subject a large range of transition metals to complexation and therefore to attach the sugar via the terpyridine system to various metals. Glycosilation of the 4-hydroxyterpyridine was achieved by phase transfer catalysis. This ligand was used to synthesize a zinc as well as a mercury complex.