New air-stable,
water-
soluble Ru(II)-phosphane complexes were synthesized in high purity by the reaction of
cis-[RuCl
2(dmso)
4] with 2 equivalents of 1,3,5-triaza-7-phosphaadamantane (pta) and its
N-methyl and
N-benzyl derivatives (pta-Me and pta-Bn, respectively). All new complexes were characterized by elementary analysis and spectroscopic methods (NMR, ESI-MS) and the molecular structures of
cis-
cis-
trans-[RuCl
2(dmso)
2(pta)
2],
cis-
cis-
trans-[RuCl
2(dmso)
2(pta-H)
2]Cl
2 (obtained in acidic solutions) and that of
cis-
cis-
trans-[RuCl
2(dmso)
2(pta-Me)
2](CF
3SO
3)
2 were determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction.
Under mild conditions, cis-[RuCl2(dmso)4] actively catalyzed the transformation of allylic alcohols into the corresponding ketones with 100 % selectivity while in the same reaction the new Ru(II)-pta complexes showed moderate activity and selectivity.