Volume 133, Issue 7 pp. 3781-3788
Forschungsartikel

Delivery of a Masked Uranium(II) by an Oxide-Bridged Diuranium(III) Complex

Dieuwertje K. Modder

Dieuwertje K. Modder

Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

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Dr. Chad T. Palumbo

Dr. Chad T. Palumbo

Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

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Iskander Douair

Iskander Douair

Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie des Nano-objets, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, 31077 Toulouse, Cedex 4, France

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Farzaneh Fadaei-Tirani

Farzaneh Fadaei-Tirani

Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

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Prof. Laurent Maron

Prof. Laurent Maron

Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie des Nano-objets, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, 31077 Toulouse, Cedex 4, France

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Prof. Marinella Mazzanti

Corresponding Author

Prof. Marinella Mazzanti

Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

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First published: 21 October 2020
Citations: 2

Abstract

Oxide is an attractive linker for building polymetallic complexes that provide molecular models for metal oxide activity, but studies of these systems are limited to metals in high oxidation states. Herein, we synthesized and characterized the molecular and electronic structure of diuranium bridged UIII/UIV and UIII/UIII complexes. Reactivity studies of these complexes revealed that the U−O bond is easily broken upon addition of N-heterocycles resulting in the delivery of a formal equivalent of UIII and UII, respectively, along with the uranium(IV) terminal-oxo coproduct. In particular, the UIII/UIII oxide complex effects the reductive coupling of pyridine and two-electron reduction of 4,4′-bipyridine affording unique examples of diuranium(III) complexes bridged by N-heterocyclic redox-active ligands. These results provide insight into the chemistry of low oxidation state metal oxides and demonstrate the use of oxo-bridged UIII/UIII complexes as a strategy to explore UII reactivity.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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