[elevation88]

I am now synthesizing Ru(II)(Bipy)2Cl2 from refluxing Ru(III)Cl3 in DMF in the presence of LiCl and bipyridine. However, I cannot understand what happened in the reduction of Ru(III) to Ru(II). What is the reducing agent? Anybody help me

[TheUnfocusedOne]

I think it might be the DMF

[AWK]

You gave insufficient information. At least a reference is needed. Ru easily change oxidation number by simple disproportionation. May be this is a case.

[TheUnfocusedOne]

I have had a simliar question in synthesizing Ru(DMSO)4Cl2 from RuCl3. It's a simple reflux in DMSO, but there's an oxidation change. Someone at a conference told me that it's the DMSO that does the reducing, but I've never been driven enough to actually check this (it was a starting material in a long synthetic scheme).

I know of several other recent procedures for making Ru bis bpy derivatives. One of the more interesting ones used water as the solvent and some sort of sugar (citric acid i think) with the usual proportions of RuCl3 and bpy.  The sugar was the reducing agent, and since the biggest change was the solvent (going green!) it seems plausible that the original solvent had something to do with the reduction reaction since they needed to add another reducing agent. I could be talkin out my butt though.

[Fleaker]

How would LiCl be the reducing agent? Promoter/catalyst perhaps, but it will not reduce Ru (think of the potential difference!)

Citric acid (citrates, ascorbates, etc) are common reducing agents. I wouldn't really call them sugars (maybe products of sugars :-) )

If you smell something stinky after the reaction, then perhaps the DMSO is responsible. It's not like it's the first time that DMSO has been oxidized in the presence of a metal and heat.