Di- and Trinuclear Mixed-Valence Copper Amidinate Complexes from Reduction of Iodine

Molecular examples of mixed-valence copper complexes through chemical oxidation are rare but invoked in the mechanism of substrate activation, especially oxygen, in copper-containing enzymes. To examine the cooperative chemistry between two metals in close proximity to each other we began studying the reactivity of a dinuclear Cu­(I) amidinate complex. The reaction of [(2,6-Me2C6H3N)2C­(H)]2Cu2, 1, with I2 in tetrahydrofuran (THF), CH3CN, and toluene affords three new mixed-valence copper complexes [(2,6-Me2C6H3N)2­C­(H)]2Cu2(μ2-I3)­(THF)2, 2, [(2,6-Me2C6H3N)2­C­(H)]2Cu2(μ2-I) (NCMe)2, 3, and [(2,6-Me2C6H3N)2­C­(H)]3Cu3(μ3-I)2, 4, respectively. The first two compounds were characterized by UV–vis and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopies, and their molecular structure was determined by X-ray crystallography. Both di- and trinuclear mixed-valence intermediates were characterized for the reaction of compound 1 to compound 4, and the molecular structure of 4 was determined by X-ray crystallography. The electronic structure of each of these complexes was also investigated using density functional theory.