Enantiopure Tetravalent Actinide Amidinates – Synthesis and Reactivity

In contrast to the dominant trivalent state for the lanthanide series (Ln(III)), a wide variety of oxidation states (from II to VII) of actinides (An) makes their chemistry intricate but attractive. Especially the early An thorium (Th), uranium (U), neptunium (Np), and plutonium (Pu) form highly charged cations with the oxidation state +IV (An4+), which are of particular interest for coordination chemistry due to their strong interaction with ligands.
The focus of our investigations lies in the comprehensive characterization of An(IV) complexes with ligands bearing soft donor atoms, such as nitrogen (N), both in the solid state and in solution. The present study focuses particularly on the interaction of An(IV) (Th, U, Np) with N-donor ligands of amidinate type, which could be considered as a simplified model of naturally occurring N-donor organic compounds.
Recently, the trivalent lanthanide complexes with the chiral benzamidine, (S,S)-N,N‘-Bis-(1-phenylethyl)-benzamidine ((S)-HPEBA), have been successfully synthesized.[1,2] Mono- and bis-amidinate complexes of the later lanthanides (Er, Yb, Lu) were obtained using a salt metathesis approach. Only for the larger samarium(III) a homoleptic tris-amidinate was accessible.
We have extended this approach to the tetravalent An, and successfully synthesized the first transuranic amidinate complexes. Moreover, we have obtained the first enantiopure amidinate complexes of An(IV) [AnCl((S)-PEBA)3] (An = Th, U, and Np) as well as the analogous Ce(IV) compound, a chemical analog of An(IV). The tris-amidinate complexes have been structurally characterized in solid state and in solution showing a comparable complex geometry.
Due to the presence of a Cl- ligand in the An coordination sphere, it could be speculated that the complex should be reactive. Thus, the reactivity of the complexes has been demonstrated by successful reduction with potassium graphite to homoleptic trivalent actinide amidinates [An((S)-PEBA)3] (An = U, Np).