Oxidative addition of MeI to some cyclometalated organoplatinum(II) complexes: Kinetics and mechanism

New cyclometalated platinum(II) complexes [PtMe(C^N)L], 1, in which C^N = deprotonated 2-phenylpyridine (ppy), benzo[h]quinoline (bhq) or 2-(p-tolyl)pyridine (tpy) and L = PPh3 or PMePh2, were synthesized by the reaction of [PtMe(C^N)(SMe2)] with 1 equiv of L. The reaction of complexes 1 with MeI gave the cyclometalated Pt(IV) complexes [PtMe2I(C^N)L], 3. On the basis of kinetic studies, using Uv–visible spectroscopy, it was suggested that the latter oxidative addition reactions were proceeded by an SN2 mechanism. The rates of the reactions at different temperatures were measured and consistent with the proposed mechanism, large negative ΔS‡ values were found for each reaction. Besides, rate of reactions (in CHCl3) involving the PPh3 complexes [PtMe(C^N)(PPh3)], were almost 3–5 times slower than those involving the PMePh2 complexes [PtMe(C^N)(PMePh2)]. This was attributed to the electronic and steric effects of PPh3 ligand as compared with that of PMePh2 ligand which was further confirmed using density functional theory (DFT) calculations through finding approximate structures for the described complexes.