Spirocyclic diaminocarbenes: synthesis, coordination chemistry, and investigation of their dimerization behavior.

Nonaromatic, "saturated", spirocyclic N-heterocyclic diaminocarbenes 11 can be obtained from spirocyclic imidazolidin-2-thiones 10 by reductive desulfurization with potassium. The unsymmetrically N,N'-substituted spirocyclic imidazolidin-2-thiones were obtained by reaction of ketimines 9 with lithium N-butyl-N-lithiomethyldithiocarbamate (6). 13C NMR spectroscopy revealed that the unsymmetrically N,N'-substituted spirocyclic imidazolidin-2-ylidene 11 a undergoes a slow, acid-catalyzed dimerization to give the enetetramine 11 a=11 a, which exists in two isomeric forms (syn and anti). This reaction is reversible under special circumstances. Carbenes of type 11 react with [W(CO)6] to yield air-stable carbene complexes of type [W11(CO)5] (14). The molecular structures of two derivatives 14 a and 14 b were established by X-ray crystallography and show clear distortion of the five-membered N-heterocyclic ring, caused by the spirocyclic molecular structure of the carbene ligands of type 11.