Molecular and Electronic Structures of Complexes Containing 1‑(2-pyridylazo)-2-phenanthrol (PAPL): Revisiting a Redox-Active Ligand

Herein we report the molecular structures and electronic properties of neutral, homoleptic, six-coordinate complexes of the general formula M­(PAPL)2, where PAPL is the monoanion of 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-phenanthrol (M = Mn, Ni, Zn). Although, the coordination chemistry of PAPL has been investigated in a few previous reports in the 1970s and 1980s, there are, to our knowledge, no reported single crystal X-ray diffraction studies of any complexes, or any other electronic property or computational studies of complexes containing the PAPL anion until now. The electronic structures of the complexes are probed with a combination of cyclic voltammetry, UV–vis spectroscopy, and spectroelectrochemical measurements. Density functional theory calculations support the redox-active nature of the PAPL ligand. In all complexes we observe two reversible ligand-centered reduction processes, suggesting it may be possible to access the open-shell radical-anionic state of the ligand.