New arene ruthenium complexes with planar chirality

1,2,4-Trimethyl-cyclohexadiene reacts with RuCl₃ · nH₂O in refluxing ethanol to afford quantitatively [RuCl₂(1,2,4-C₆H₃Me₃)]₂ (1), the coordination of 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene to the ruthenium atom introducing planar chirality at the η⁶-arene ligand. The dinuclear complex 1 reacts with two equivalents of triphenylphosphine (PPh₃) to give quantitatively, as a racemic mixture of enantiomers, [RuCl₂(1,2,4-C₆H₃Me₃)(PPh₃)] (2), the structure of which has been determined by a single-crystal X-ray structure analysis of (rac)-2. Similarly, 1 reacts with two equivalents of the enantiopure phosphine (1S,2S,5R)-(+)-neomenthyldiphenylphosphine (nmdpp) to afford in good yield [RuCl₂(1,2,4-C₆H₃Me₃)(nmdpp)] (3) as a mixture of diastereoisomers, from which the isomer 3a was isolated by crystallisation. A single-crystal X-ray structure analysis of 3a allowed the determination of the absolute configuration at the planar chiral η⁶-arene moiety. Finally, complex 1 reacts with one equivalent of the diphosphine ligand 1,1^′-bis(diphenylphosphino)ferrocene (dppfc) to give the heteronuclear complex [RuCl₂(1,2,4-C₆H₃Me₃) (dppfc)RuCl₂(1,2,4-C₆H₃Me₃)] (4). All complexes were fully characterised by elemental analysis, mass spectrometry, NMR and IR spectroscopies.