Synthesis and electronic structure of cationic, neutral, and anionic bis(imino)pyridine iron alkyl complexes: evaluation of redox activity in single-component ethylene polymerization catalysts.

A family of cationic, neutral, and anionic bis(imino)pyridine iron alkyl complexes has been prepared, and their electronic and molecular structures have been established by a combination of X-ray diffraction, Mössbauer spectroscopy, magnetochemistry, and open-shell density functional theory. For the cationic complexes, [((iPr)PDI)Fe-R][BPh(4)] ((iPr)PDI = 2,6-(2,6-(i)Pr(2)-C(6)H(3)N═CMe)(2)C(5)H(3)N; R = CH(2)SiMe(3), CH(2)CMe(3), or CH(3)), which are known single-component ethylene polymerization catalysts, the data establish high spin ferrous compounds (S(Fe) = 2) with neutral, redox-innocent bis(imino)pyridine chelates. One-electron reduction to the corresponding neutral alkyls, ((iPr)PDI)Fe(CH(2)SiMe(3)) or ((iPr)PDI)Fe(CH(2)CMe(3)), is chelate-based, resulting in a bis(imino)pyridine radical anion (S(PDI) = 1/2) antiferromagnetically coupled to a high spin ferrous ion (S(Fe) = 2). The neutral neopentyl derivative was reduced by an additional electron and furnished the corresponding anion, [Li(Et(2)O)(3)][((iPr)PDI)Fe(CH(2)CMe(3))N(2)], with concomitant coordination of dinitrogen. The experimental and computational data establish that this S = 0 compound is best described as a low spin ferrous compound (S(Fe) = 0) with a closed-shell singlet bis(imino)pyridine dianion (S(PDI) = 0), demonstrating that the reduction is ligand-based. The change in field strength of the bis(imino)pyridine coupled with the placement of the alkyl ligand into the apical position of the molecule induced a spin state change at the iron center from high to low spin. The relevance of the compounds and their electronic structures to olefin polymerization catalysis is also presented.

A pattern recognition based fluorescence quenching assay for the detection and identification of nitrated explosive analytes.

Herein we report a differential array of micelle-solubilized fluorophores for the detection and identification of small nitrated analytes, such as the explosives TNT, tetryl, RDX and HMX. The quenching ability of the analytes can be used to correlate their analyte identity, wherein the quenching patterns generated from the differential array are used in linear discriminant analysis (LDA). LDA results in a well-clustered two-dimensional plot, and a jack-knife analysis of the data suggests that this system can be used to identify unknown samples of analyte with 96 % accuracy and with a detection limit of 19 muM.