Electron deficient boranes behave as Lewis acids, reacting readily with Lewis bases to form Lewis pairs.1 Lewis acid-base pairs are known to exhibit interesting reactivity including heterolytic H-H bond cleavage, addition to non-activated carbon-carbon double bonds, and can undergo either 1,2- or 1,4- addition reactions to conjugated dienes.1 We have found that reactions between ferrocenyl(phenyl)phosphines (FcxPPh3-x x= 0-2) and tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane, B(C6F5)3, leads to Lewis pairs containing an electroactive iron (II) center. The products exhibit considerable intramolecular motion in solution as detected by 1H and 31P NMR spectroscopy.

Synthesis of frustrated Lewis pairs based on ferrocenyl phosphines

247th National Meeting (2014)

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