Access to well-defined isolated Fe(II) centers on silica and their use in oxidation.

Well-defined Fe(II) isolated sites are obtained by reaction of diaryl-N,N'-diazadiene bis(neosilyl) iron (1) with an aerosil silica, SiO(2-(700)). This system can be used as a precursor for the catalytic oxidation of cyclohexene into cyclohexene oxide, cyclohexenol and cyclohexenone in the presence of H(2)O(2).

Solid-state NMR of a paramagnetic DIAD-FeII catalyst: sensitivity, resolution enhancement, and structure-based assignments.

A general protocol for the structural characterization of paramagnetic molecular solids using solid-state NMR is provided and illustrated by the characterization of a high-spin Fe(II) catalyst precursor. We show how good NMR performance can be obtained on a molecular powder sample at natural abundance by using very fast (>30 kHz) magic angle spinning (MAS), even though the individual NMR resonances have highly anisotropic shifts and very short relaxation times. The results include the optimization of broadband heteronuclear (proton-carbon) recoupling sequences for polarization transfer; the observation of single or multiple quantum correlation spectra between coupled spins as a tool for removing the inhomogeneous bulk magnetic susceptibility (BMS) broadening; and the combination of NMR experiments and density functional theory calculations, to yield assignments.