Photochemical Approach to the Cyclohepta[b]indole Scaffold by Annulative Two-Carbon Ring-Expansion

We report on the implementation of the concept of a photochemically elicited two-carbon homologation of a π-donor-π-acceptor substituted chromophore by triple-bond insertion. Implementing a phenyl connector between the slide-in module and the chromophore enabled the synthesis of cylohepta[b]indole-type building blocks by a metal-free annulative one-pot two-carbon ring expansion of the five-membered chromophore. Post-irradiative structural elaboration provided founding members of the indolo[2,3-d]tropone family of compounds. Control experiments in combination with computational chemistry on this multibond reorganization process founded the basis for a mechanistic hypothesis.

A clothes-peg-shaped binucleartrans-bis(2-aminotroponato)palladium(II) complex bearing pentamethylene spacers

rac-Bis{μ-trans-2,2′-[pentane-1,5-diylbis(azanediyl)]ditroponato}dipalladium(II), [Pd2(C19H20N2O2)2], has been synthesized and fully characterized using single-crystal X-ray diffraction,1H NMR, FT–IR and mass spectroscopy. Thetranscoordination, vaulted structure andanticonformation have been unequivocally established from the X-ray diffraction studies. This is the first example of a bis(aminotroponato)palladium complex. In the crystalline state, the molecule has twofold symmetry and each molecular unit undergoes intermolecular offset π-stacking of the tropone rings to afford heterochiral interpenetrating dimers that are aligned in a lamellar manner with a herringbone packing motif.