Reaction of a series of diazonium salts with a mixture of formaldehyde and 1,2-diamino-2-methylpropane affords the 3-({5,5-dimethyl-3-[2-aryl-1-diazenyl]-1-imidazolidinyl}methyl)-4,4-dimethyl-1-[2-aryl-1-diazenyl]imidazolidines (1a–1f) in excellent yield. The products have been characterized by IR and NMR spectroscopic analysis, elemental analysis, and X-ray crystallography. The X-ray crystal structure of the p-methoxycarbonyl derivative (1c) establishes without question the connectivity of these novel molecules, which can be described as linear bicyclic oligomers with two imidazolidinyl groups linked together by a one-carbon spacer. This is indeed a rare molecular building block. The molecular structure is corroborated by 1H and 13C NMR data, which correlates with the previously published data of compounds of types 5 and 6 derived from 1,3-propanediamine. The triazene moieties in the crystal of 1c display significant π conjugation, which gives the N—N bond a significant degree of double-bond character. This in turn causes restricted rotation around the N—N bond, which leads to considerable broadening of signals in both the 1H and 13C NMR spectra. The molecular ion of the p-cyanophenyl derivative (1b) was observed using electrospray mass spectrometry (ES + Na). The mechanism of formation of molecules of type 1 is proposed to involve diazonium ion trapping of the previously unreported bisimidazolidinyl methane (13).Key words: triazene, bistriazene, imidazolidine, synthesis, X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy.
