Nucleophilic Substitution at a Coordinatively Saturated Five-Membered NHC∙Haloborane Centre

Abstract

In this paper, we have used a saturated five-membered N-Heterocyclic carbene (5SIDipp = 1,3-bis-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)imidazolin-2-ylidine) for the synthesis of SNHC-haloboranes adducts and their further nucleophilic substitutions to put unusual functional groups at the central boron atom. The reaction of 5-SIDipp with RBCl2 yields Lewis-base adducts, 5-SIDipp·RBCl2 [R = H (1), Ph (2)]. The hydrolysis of 1 gives the NHC stabilized boric acid, 5-SIDipp·B(OH)3 (3), selectively. Replacement of chlorine atoms from 1 and 2 with one equivalent of AgOTf led to the formation of 5-SIDipp·HBCl(OTf) (4) and 5-SIDipp·PhBCl(OTf) (5a), where all the substituents on the boron atoms are different. The addition of two equivalents of AgNO3 to 2 leads to the formation of rare di-nitro substituted 5-SIDipp·BPh(NO3)2 (6). Further, the reaction of 5-SIDipp with B(C6F5)3 in tetrahydrofuran and diethyl ether shows a frustrated Lewis pair type small molecule activated products, 7 and 8.

Keywords

• saturated NHC
• NHC-haloboranes
• nucleophilic substitution
• tetra-coordinate boron