Synthesis, structure and solution chemistry of quaternary oxovanadium(V) complexes incorporating hydrazone ligands

[V^IVO(acac)₂] reacts with an equimolar amount of benzoyl hydrazone of 2-hydroxyacetophenone (H₂L¹) or 5-chloro-2-hydroxyacetophenone (H₂L²) in the presence of excess pyridine (py) in methanol to produce the quaternary [V^VO(L¹)(OCH₃)(py)] (1) and [V^VO(L²)(OCH₃)(py)] (2) complexes, respectively, while under similar condition, the benzoyl hydrazones of 2-hydroxy-5-methylacetophenone (H₂L³) and 2-hydroxy-5-methoxyacetophenone (H₂L⁴) afforded only the methoxy bridged dimeric [V^VO(L³/L⁴)(OCH₃)]₂ complexes. The X-ray structural analysis of 1 and 2 indicates that the geometry around the metal is distorted octahedral where the three equatorial positions are occupied by the phenolate-O, enolate-O and the imine-N of the fully deprotonated hydrazone ligand in its enolic form and the fourth one by a methoxide-O atom. An oxo-O and a pyridine-N atom occupy two axial positions. Quaternary complexes exhibit one quasi-reversible one-electron reduction peak near 0.25 V versus SCE in CH₂Cl₂ and they decompose appreciably to the corresponding methoxy bridged dimeric complex in CDCl₃ solution as indicated by their ¹H NMR spectra. These quaternary VO³⁺ complexes are converted to the corresponding -complexes simply on refluxing them in acetone and to the -complexes on reaction with KOH in methanol. An equimolar amount of 8-hydroxyquinoline (Hhq) converts these quaternary complexes to the ternary [V^VO(L)(hq)] complexes in CHCl₃.