Azanone (HNO): generation, stabilization and detection.

HNO (nitroxyl, azanone), joined the 'biologically relevant reactive nitrogen species' family in the 2000s. Azanone is impossible to store due to its high reactivity and inherent low stability. Consequently, its chemistry and effects are studied using donor compounds, which release this molecule in solution and in the gas phase upon stimulation. Researchers have also tried to stabilize this elusive species and its conjugate base by coordination to metal centers using several ligands, like metalloporphyrins and pincer ligands. Given HNO's high reactivity and short lifetime, several different strategies have been proposed for its detection in chemical and biological systems, such as colorimetric methods, EPR, HPLC, mass spectrometry, fluorescent probes, and electrochemical analysis. These approaches are described and critically compared. Finally, in the last ten years, several advances regarding the possibility of endogenous HNO generation were made; some of them are also revised in the present work.

Synthesis, structure and reactivity of NO+, NO˙ and NO- pincer PCN-Rh complexes.

Synthesis of a pincer-type linear nitrosyl complex [Rh(PtBu2CNEt2)(NO)]+ (3+) is described. The product and all intermediates involved were fully characterized by FTIR, NMR, cyclic voltammetry and X-ray crystallography. Attempts at obtaining (3+) from its chlorinated precursor Rh(PCN)(NO)Cl (2) revealed that a relative stabilization of this complex ion is introduced by the BArF- counteranion, as other counteranions-PF6-, BF4- and triflate-proved to coordinate to the metal center. Redox reactivity both of (3+) and of that of its five-coordinate derivatives (2) and [Rh(PCN)(NO)(CH3CN)]+ (4+) was found to distinguish itself from analogous PCP complexes due to a relative stabilization of higher oxidation states. Oxidation of these three complexes was studied by FTIR spectroelectrochemistry. Reduction of complex (3+) to yield a short-lived {RhNO}9 species [Rh(PCN)(NO)]˙ (3˙) was also carried out. Complex (3˙) was proved able to activate carbon-halogen bonds in aryl halides, in much a similar way as that of its PCP analogue. Complex (3+) was also seen to establish a linear ↔ bent nitrosyl equilibrium upon addition of CO which could not be fully displaced with excess CO.