Facile B–H Bond Activation of Borane by Stable Carbenoid Species
摘要:
Stable nucleophilic carbene compounds have recently been shown to be able to mimic in some instances the reactivity of metal fragments in the reaction of unactivated E-H bonds (E = H, R3Si, NH2, R2P). However, the insertion into a B-H bond of the strongly Lewis acidic BH3 molecule has never been observed at a single C atom or even at a metal fragment. Our results show that designed stable, highly electrophilic carbenoid fragments in compounds 4 and 6 can achieve this reactivity in a controlled manner. Density functional theory calculations corroborated the experimental results on the presently designed systems as well as the lack of reactivity on nucleophilic carbenes.