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Updated: May 19, 2026

Isolating Free Carbenes, their Mixed Dimers and Organic Radicals
Published on: April 19, 2019
A Crystalline (Amino)(chloro)Carbene: A Platform for Nucleophilic Substitution at a Carbene Center
Wenyi Dong1, Mehdi Abdellaoui1, Daniel Chan1
1UCSD-CNRS Joint Research Chemistry Laboratory (IRL 3555), Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, USA.
Abstract:
Halogenocarbenes have attracted significant interest for almost a century because they combine classical singlet carbene reactivity with the presence of a readily substituted halogen group. Before this work, no halogenocarbenes had been isolated and taming their instability remained a synthetic challenge. This report describes the preparation of room temperature stable (amino)(chloro)carbenes and examples of their substitution chemistry at the carbene center, unlocking access to a wide range of acyclic carbenes.
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