DOI: 10.1002/ejic.201501221 Full Paper Half-Sandwich Guanidinates Half-Sandwich Guanidinate–Osmium(II) Complexes: Synthesis and Application in the Selective Dehydration of Aldoximes Javier Francos, [a] Pedro J. González-Liste, [a] Lucía Menéndez-Rodríguez, [a] Pascale Crochet, [a] Victorio Cadierno,* [a] Javier Borge, [b] Antonio Antiñolo,* [c] Rafael Fernández-Galán, [c] and Fernando Carrillo-Hermosilla [c] Abstract: The novel guanidinate–osmium(II) complexes [OsCl{κ 2 -(N,N)-C(NR)(NiPr)NHiPr}(η 6 -p-cymene)] [R = Ph (3a), 4- C 6 H 4 F(3b), 4-C 6 H 4 Cl (3c), 4-C 6 H 4 CF 3 (3d), 3-C 6 H 4 CF 3 (3e), 3,5- C 6 H 3 (CF 3 ) 2 (3f ), 4-C 6 H 4 CN (3g), 4-C 6 H 4 Me (3h), 3-C 6 H 4 Me (3i), 2-C 6 H 4 Me (3j), 4-C 6 H 4 tBu (3k), 2,6-C 6 H 3 iPr 2 (3l), 2,4,6-C 6 H 2 Me 3 (3m)] have been synthesized in high yields (70–88 %) by treat- ment of THF solutions of the dimeric precursor [{OsCl(μ-Cl)(η 6 - p-cymene)} 2 ](1) with 4 equivalents of the corresponding guan- idine (iPrHN) 2 C=NR (2a–m) at room temperature. The easily separable guanidinium chloride salts [(iPrHN) 2 C(NHR)]Cl (4a–m) Introduction Since the seminal work by Lappert and co-workers in 1970, [1] a large number of metal complexes containing guanidinate li- gands have been described in the literature. [2] Notably, some of them have found utility in catalysis (e.g., polymerization of ole- fins, hydroamination of alkynes), as well as in materials science as precursors for chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and atom layer deposition (ALD) applications. [2] The easy generation of guanidinate mono- and dianions from readily available guan- idines, [3] along with their high steric and electronic modulabil- ity, have allowed the coordination of these ligands to virtually all transition metals. [2] In this context, we recently reported the preparation of a series of ruthenium(II)– and ruthenium(IV)– guanidinate derivatives (see A and B in Figure 1), which proved [a] Laboratorio de Compuestos Organometálicos y Catálisis (Unidad Asociada al CSIC), Centro de Innovación en Química Avanzada (ORFEO-CINQA), Departamento de Química Orgánica e Inorgánica, Instituto Universitario de Química Organometálica “Enrique Moles“, Universidad de Oviedo, Julián Clavería 8, 33006 Oviedo, Spain E-mail: vcm@uniovi.es http://www.unioviedo.es/comorca [b] Departamento de Química Física y Analítica, Centro de Innovación en Química Avanzada (ORFEO-CINQA), Universidad de Oviedo, Julián Clavería 8, 33006 Oviedo, Spain [c] Centro de Innovación en Química Avanzada (ORFEO-CINQA), Depar- tamento de Química Inorgánica, Orgánica y Bioquímica, Facultad de Ciencias y Tecnologías Químicas - Campus de Ciudad Real, Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, Campus Universitario, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain E-mail: Antonio.Antinolo@uclm.es https://www.uclm.es/profesorado/afantinolo/ Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW under http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejic.201501221. Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. 2016, 393–402 © 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 393 were also formed in these reactions. The structures of 3a, 3d, and 3h were unequivocally confirmed by X-ray diffraction methods. Complexes 3am proved to be active in the catalytic dehydration of aldoximes. The best results were obtained with [OsCl{κ 2 -(N,N)-C(N-4-C 6 H 4 CF 3 )(NiPr)NHiPr}(η 6 -p-cymene)] (3d; 5 mol-%), which, in acetonitrile at 80 °C, was able to convert selectively a large variety of aromatic, heteroaromatic, α,-un- saturated, and aliphatic aldoximes into the corresponding nitriles in high yields and short reaction times. to be very efficient catalysts for the base-free redox isomeriza- tion of allylic alcohols [turnover frequency (TOF) up to 1200 h –1 ]. [4] These complexes were easily obtained from the reactions of the dimeric precursors [{RuCl(μ-Cl)(η 6 -p-cymene)} 2 ] and [{RuCl(μ-Cl)(η 3 :η 3 -C 10 H 16 )} 2 ] (C 10 H 16 = 2,7-dimethylocta-2,6- diene-1,8-diyl), respectively, with an excess of the correspond- ing guanidine (iPrHN) 2 C=NR. [4] Figure 1. Structures of the ruthenium–guanidinate complexes A and B. In addition to A and B, the synthesis of a significant number of other mono- and dinuclear ruthenium–guanidinate com- plexes have been reported, [5] and several iron representatives are known. [6] In marked contrast, within this group of the peri- odic table, little attention has been devoted to the chemistry of osmium compounds with this class of ligands. In fact, to the best of our knowledge, only four examples have been de- scribed so far in the literature (see Figure 2): 1) The mononu- clear complexes C and D, containing a mono- and dianionic guanidinate ligand, respectively, [5c,5f ] and 2) the dinuclear pad- dlewheel-type species E and F , in which anions of the bicyclic guanidine 1,3,4,6,7,8-hexahydro-2H-pyrimido[1,2-a]pyrimidine act as bridges in Os 2 n+ cores (n = 6, 7). [7] Worthy of note, none of them has found applications in homogeneous catalysis.