Reaction of Amines with Aldehydes and Ketones Revisited: Access To a Class of Non-Scorpionate Tris(pyrazolyl)methane and Related Ligands.

The reaction of amines with aldehydes and ketones has been exploited for over 150 years to produce Schiff bases, one of the most popular classes of compounds in both organic and coordination chemistry. In certain cases, however, compounds other than Schiff bases have been reported to result from such reactions. After conducting a representative reaction under various different conditions and identifying several reaction intermediates by NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry and X-ray crystallography, we now report a unified picture that explains the scattered and often inconsistent results obtained with 3(5)-aminopyrazole derivatives and other related molecules.