Synthesis and structural characterization of palladium pincer complexes: Sustainable synthesis of benzothiazoles

Abstract

An efficient Pd(II)N^N^S pincer type catalysts‐promoted sustainable construction of pharmaceutically important benzothiazole derivatives from primary alcohols and 2‐aminothiophenol via acceptorless dehydrogenative coupling (ADC) method has been described. The newly synthesized ligand L2 and the Pd(II) complexes in addition to L1 and L3 were characterized by analytical and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), UV–visible (UV–vis), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral techniques. Further, the ORTEP views of the complexes 2 and 3 were established by a single crystal XRD study, which evidenced the coordination of the thiosemicarbazone ligands and disclose the square‐planar geometry around the Pd(II) ion. The present homogeneous catalytic system involves synthesizing a range of benzothiazoles via C−S and C−N bond formation with excellent yields up to 93%. The described methodology employs a sustainable, highly abundant, and inexpensive alcohol as starting material using 1 mol% catalyst loading, and water and hydrogen gas are the only by‐products. Furthermore, a plausible mechanism involving in situ aldehyde formation via dehydrogenation of primary alcohols has been proposed. A large‐scale synthesis of 2‐(4‐methoxyphenyl)benzo[d]thiazole illustrates the synthetic utility of the present catalytic protocol.