Bent CNN bond of diazo compounds, RR′(CN+N−)

The reaction of ninhydrin with benzophenone hydrazone afforded 2-diazo-3-diphenylmethylenehydrazono-1-indanone 1 and 2-diazo-1,3-bis(diphenylmethylenehydrazono)indan 2. X-ray crystal structure analyses of these products showed that the diazo functional group CN+N− of 1 is bent by 172.9°, while that of 2 has a linear geometry. The crystal structure data of diazo compounds have been retrieved from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), which hit 177 entries to indicate that the angle of 172.9° in 1 lies in one of the most bent structures. The CSD search also indicated that diazo compounds consisting of a distorted diazo carbon tend to bend the CN+N− bond. On the basis of DFT calculations (B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p)) of model compounds, it was revealed that the bending of the CNN bond is principally induced by steric factors and that the neighboring carbonyl group also plays a role in bending toward the carbonyl side owing to an electrostatic attractive interaction. The potential surface along the path of CN+N− bending in 2-diazopropane shows a significantly shallow profile with only 4 kcal/mol needed to bend the CN+N− bond from 180° to 160°. Thus, the bending of the diazo group in 1 is reasonable as it is provided with all of the factors for facile bending disclosed in this investigation.