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A Highly Sterically Encumbered Boron Lewis Acid Enabled by an Organotellurium-Based Ligand
Daniel Wegener1, Alberto Pérez-Bitrián1,2, Niklas Limberg1
1Fachbereich Biologie, Chemie, Pharmazie, Institut für Chemie und Biochemie - Anorganische Chemie, Freie Universität Berlin, Fabeckstraße 34/36, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
Abstract:
Lewis acidic boron compounds are ubiquitous in chemistry due to their numerous applications, yet tuning and optimizing their properties towards different purposes is still a challenging field of research. In this work, the boron-based Lewis acid B[OTeF3(C6F5)2]3 was synthesized by reaction of the teflate derivative HOTeF3(C6F5)2 with BCl3 or BCl3 ⋅ SMe2. This new compound presents a remarkably high thermal stability up to 300 °C, as well as one of the most sterically encumbered boron centres known in the literature. Theoretical and experimental methods revealed that B[OTeF3(C6F5)2]3 exhibits a comparable Lewis acidity to that of the well-known B(C6F5)3. The affinity of B[OTeF3(C6F5)2]3 towards pyridine was accessed by Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC) and compared to that of B(OTeF5)3 and B(C6F5)3. The ligand-transfer reactivity of this new boron compound towards different fluorides was demonstrated by the formation of an anionic Au(III) complex and a hypervalent iodine(III) species.
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