Towards Norcorrin: Hydrogenation Chemistry and the Heterodimerization of Nickel(II) Norcorrole

Abstract5,14‐Dimesitylnorcorrolatonickel(II) was hydrogenated under mild conditions (room temperature, 1 atm H2, THF solution, 5 min.) in the presence of Raney nickel to yield nonaromatic derivatives that were isolated and characterized by NMR spectroscopy, UV/Vis spectrophotometry, HRMS, cyclic voltammetry, and X‐ray diffraction analysis. The major hydrogenation product, 1,2,3,7,8,9‐hexahydronorcorrolatonickel(II), underwent dimerization in the presence of p‐chloranil to give a nonsymmetrically linked 2,3′‐bis(norcorrole) system that can adopt eight different oxidation states over a redox potential window of 3 V and has a HOMO–LUMO gap of 0.92 V.