Regioselective cyclomanganation of Schiff bases. An unexpected effect of chloro substituents

In this paper we describe the synthesis of new metallacycles by the cyclomanganation reaction of benzyl-benzylidene-amines by using [MnMe(CO)5] as metallating agent. These ligands can undergo metallation on different aromatic carbon atoms but no important differences have been found in the regioselectivity of the process, that can be related to the electronic effect of the substituents, and in all the cases studied the endo-cyclomanganated complexes of para-substituted imines have been obtained. The corresponding exo-metallacycles were obtained by reaction of [MnMe(CO)5] on the imine 2,6-Cl2C6H3CHdouble bond; length as m-dashNCH2Ph and 2,4,6-Me3C6H2CHdouble bond; length as m-dashNCH2Ph, derived from 2,6-dichlorobenzaldehyde and 2,4,6-trimethylbenzaldehyde, respectively. The results described suggest that the mechanism of the cyclomanganation is similar to that of cyclopalladation and it can be proposed that cyclomanganation takes place by the formation of a four-centered transition state, involving the C–H and Mn–Cacetyl bonds, in the acetyl coordination complex formed in the first step of the reaction.