A Novel Iron(III) Complex with a Tridentate Ligand as a Functional Model for Catechol Dioxygenases: Properties and Reactivity of [Fe(BBA)DBC]$ClO_4

[FeIII(BBA)DBC]ClO4 as a new functional model for catechol dioxygenases has been synthesized, where BBA is a bis(benzimidazolyl-2-methyl)amine and DBC is a 3,5-di-tert-butylcatecholate dianion.The BBA complex has a structuralfeature that iron cent er has a five-coordinate geometry similar to that of catechol dioxygenase-substrate complex.The BBA complex exhibits strong absorptionbands at 560 and 820 nm in CH3CN which are assigned to catecholate to Fe(III) charge transfer transitions. It also exhibits EPR signals at g = 9.3 and 4.3 which are typical values for the high-spin FeIII (S = 5/2) complex with rhombicsymmetry. Interestingly, the BBA complex reacts with O2 within an hour to afford intradiol cleavage (35%) and extradiol cleavage (60%) products. Surprisingly, a green color intermediate is observed during the oxygenation process of the BBA com-plex in CH3CN. This green intermediate shows a broad isotropic EPR signal at g = 2.0. Based on the variable temperature EPR study, this isotropic signalmight be originated from the [Fe(III)-peroxo-catecholate] species havinglow-spin FeIII center, not from the simple organic radical. Consequently,it allows O2 to bind to iron cen-ter forming the Fe(III)-superoxide species that converts to the Fe(III)-peroxide intermediate. These present data can lead us tosuggest that the oxygen activation mechanism take place for the oxidative cleavingcatechols of the five-coordinate model systems for catechol dioxygenases.