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A Stable, Crystalline Beryllium Radical Cation
Guocang Wang1, Jacob E Walley1, Diane A Dickie1
1Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, 409 McCormick Road, P.O. Box 400319, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, United States.
Abstract:
The alkaline-earth elements (Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba) strongly favor the formation of diamagnetic compounds in the +2 oxidation state. Herein we report a paramagnetic beryllium radical cation, [(CAAC)2Be]+• (2) [CAAC = cyclic (alkyl)(amino)carbene], prepared by oxidation of a zero-valent beryllium complex with 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-oxyl (TEMPO). Compound 2 was characterized by EPR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, X-ray crystallography, and DFT calculations. Notably, the isolation of 2 represents the first s-block charged radical and the first crystalline beryllium radical.
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