Aluminium reagents play an important role in various synthetic applications. Methylaluminoxane as a co-catalyst in polymer chemistry is one example how the formation of aluminium oxide cages by hydrolysis has attracted research interest in the past decades. This project aims to study the reactions of carboxylic acids with organoaluminium reagents to generate novel aluminium compounds, which can then be hydrolysed under various conditions by selectively tuning temperature and pressure in order to generate new aluminium oxide species. Suitable compounds for this purpose that are being tested include aluminium benzoate derivatives. The syntheses were carried out using standard Schlenk techniques and yielded novel compounds, e.g. [Me2Al(μ-O2CPh)]2. Using derivatives of anthranilic acid, HOOCC6H4NHR leads to the formation of different interesting structural motifs depending on the nature of R and the reaction stoichiometry: 2-(phenylamino)benzoic acid reacts twice with one equivalent of triisobutylalumnium to yield [iBuAl(μ-O2CC6H4NPh-2)]4 containing a 16 membered Ring (Figure 1). The 2-(methyl-amino)benzoic acid forms a corresponding product when one equivalent of aluminium reagent is used. However increasing the reaction stoichiometry to two equivalents of trimethylaluminium results in the isolation of [Me4Al2(μ-O2CC6H4NMe-2)]2.

Aluminium carboxylates as precursors for the synthesis of aluminium-oxo-cages

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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