Cationic Effects on the Effective Hydrogen Atom Bond Dissociation Free Energy of High Valent Manganese Imido Complexes

Local electric fields can alter energy landscapes to impart enhanced reactivity in enzymes and at surfaces. There has been renewed interest on their use in molecular systems, where they can be installed using charged functionalities. Manga-nese(V) salen nitrido complexes (salen = N,N’-ethylenebis(salicylideneaminato)) appended with a crown ether unit con-taining a Na+ (1-Na), K+, (1-K), Ba2+ (1-Ba), Sr2+ (1-Sr), La3+ (1-La), or Eu3+ (1-Eu) cation were investigated to experimen-tally demonstrate the effect of cation-induced electric fields on pKa, E1/2, and the effective bond dissociation free energy (BDFE) of N–H bonds. The series, which includes the manganese (V) salen nitrido without a crown appended, spans 4 units of charge. Bounds for the pKa values of the transient imido complexes were determined by UV-visible and 1H NMR spectroscopy. These values, together with the reduction potentials for the Mn(VI/V) couple measured by cyclic voltamme-try in acetonitrile, were used to calculated the N–H BDFEs of the imidos. Despite spanning >700 mV and >9 pKa units across the series, the hydrogen atom BDFE only spans ~ 5 kcal/mol (between 76 and 81 kcal/mol). These results suggest that incorporation of cationic functionalities is an effective strategy for accessing wide ranges of reduction potentials and pKa while minimally affecting BDFE, which is essential to modulating electron, proton, or hydrogen atom transfer path-ways.