Reinvestigation of a Ru(2)-incorporated polyoxometalate dioxygenase precatalyst, "[WZnRu(2)(III)(H(2)O)(OH)(ZnW(9)O(34))(2)](11-)": evidence for marginal,

A 1997 Nature paper (Nature 1997, 388, 353-355) and subsequent 1998 J. Am. Chem. Soc. paper (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1998, 120, 11969-11976) reported that a putative Ru(2)-substituted polyoxoanion, "[WZnRu(2)(III)(H(2)O)(OH)(ZnW(9)O(34))(2)](11-)", (1), is an all inorganic dioxygenase able to incorporate one O(2) into two adamantane CH bonds to yield 2 equiv of 1-adamantanol as the primary product. In a subsequent 2005 Inorg. Chem. publication (Inorg. Chem. 2005, 44, 4175-4188), strong evidence was provided that the putative dioxygenase chemistry is, instead, the result of classic autoxidation catalysis. That research raised the question of whether the reported Ru(2) precatalyst, 1, was pure or even if it contained two Ru atoms, since Ru is known to be difficult to substitute into polyoxoanion structures (Nomiya, K.; Torii, H.; Nomura, K.; Sato, Y. J. Chem. Soc. Dalton Trans. 2001, 1506-1521). After our research group had contact with three other groups who also had difficulties reproducing the reported synthesis and composition of 1, we decided to re-examine 1 in some detail. Herein we provide evidence that the claimed 1 actually appears to be the parent polyoxoanion [WZn(3)(H(2)O)(2)(ZnW(9)O(34))(2)](12-) with small amounts of Ru (