Article

Carbonyl oxygen atoms have two formal lone pairs of electrons. In principle, both can be used simultaneously to form complexes with two or more Lewis acids. This multiple coordination promises to have a variety of interesting consequences; unfortunately, however, complexes of carbonyl compounds with multiple Lewis acids are extremely rare. To promote multiple coordination, we have made a series of symmetric ketodiesters and related compounds in which the carbonyl group of a ketone is flanked by two additional sites of Lewis basicity. In such compounds, the flanking bases and both lone pairs of the central ketone are available for binding two equivalents of suitable Lewis acids, thereby producing symmetric double chelates in which the central ketone interacts with two Lewis acids at the same time. As expected, treatment of 3-oxoglutarates and 4-oxopimelates with TiCl4 in a 1:1 ratio yielded unsymmetric single chelates in which the carbonyl groups of the ketone and one ester bind TiCl4, while the other ester remains free. Unfortunately, treatment of the same ketodiesters with TiCl4 in a 1:2 ratio did not produce the desired symmetric double chelates. Instead, 2:4 complexes were formed in which the free esters of the unsymmetric single chelates bind TiCl4 in the normal way, without assistance from the keto group. We attribute this observation to the inherent reluctance of ketones to bind multiple Lewis acids, as well as to unfavorable Cl · · ·Cl interactions created in the hypothetical double chelates by the simultaneous attachment of two octahedrally coordinated atoms of titanium to a single carbonyl oxygen atom.Key words: Lewis acids, chelation, ketodiesters, TiCl4.