Stereoelectronic aspects of inter-metal nitrogen atom transfer reactions between nitridomanganese(V) and chromium(III) porphyrins

Reactions of nitridomanganese(V) porphyrins with chromium(III) porphyrins resulted in the irreversible formation of nitridochromium(V) porphyrins and manganese(III) porphyrins. The progress of these reactions has been followed spectrophotometrically, electrochemically, and spectroscopically by EPR. Kinetic analysis of the spectrophotometric data obtained during these reactions for a variety of substituted porphyrins showed the reactions to be first order in each of the reactants. Rate constants were dependent upon the electronic and steric effects of the porphyrin substituent, upon the identity of the anion bound to the chromium(III) reactant, and upon the solvent dielectric constant. We propose that the mechanism of these nitrogen atom transfer reactions involves the nucleophilic attack of the nitridomanganese porphyrin donor on the cationic chromium(III) porphyrin acceptor facilitating a net, two-electron redox process mediated by a heterobimetallic mu-nitrido intermediate. This report represents the first systematic study of the stereoelectronic effects involved in the complete, inter-metal nitrogen atom transfer between two metalloporphyrins.