Preparations and properties of vanadium(III) complexes of bidentate and terdentate nitrogen-donor ligands

Summary Vanadium(III) chloride reacts with 1,10-phenanthroline and 2,2-bipyridyl, and with substituted derivatives of each ligand (B), in ethanol or in acetonitrile as solvent (L), to yield two different series of complexes. These are (a) the neutral species VCl₃BL, where B = 1,10-phenanthroline, 5-chloro-1,10-phenanthroline, 5-methyl-1,10-phenanthroline, 4,7-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline, 2,2-bipyridyl, 4,4-dimethyl-2,2-bipyridyl, L = ethanol. The complexes in which B = 1,10-phenanthroline or 2,2-bipyridyl were also obtained with L = acetonitrile, (b) VCl₂B₂]⁺VCl₄B]^– where B is the same series of ligands listed above. Vanadium(III) chloride yields VCl₃ (terpy) with 2,2,2 -terpyridyl. All the complexes have been characterised by elemental analyses, conductance measurements, electronic- and i.r. spectral measurements, and by their temperature-range (297–77 K) magnetic moments; ring substituents have little influence on any chemical or physical properties of these complexes.