Raut AH, Costa P, Sander W. Reactions of Arylcarbenes with Lewis Acids.
Chemistry 2018;
24:18043-18051. [PMID:
30230615 DOI:
10.1002/chem.201803695]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2018] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
The reactions of the three triplet ground state arylcarbenes diphenylcarbene 1, fluorenylidene 2, and dibenzocycloheptadienylidene 3 with the Lewis acids H2 O, ICF3 , and BF3 were studied under the conditions of matrix isolation. H2 O was selected as typical hydrogen bond donor, ICF3 as halogen bond donor, and BF3 as strong Lewis acid. H2 O forms hydrogen-bonded complexes of the singlet carbenes with 1 and 2, but not with 3. This is rationalized by the larger singlet-triplet gap of 3, which does not allow to stabilize the singlet state below the triplet state by hydrogen bonding. With ICF3 , both 1 and 3 form halogen-bonded complexes of the singlet states of the carbenes. This indicates that halogen bonding stabilizes singlet carbenes more than hydrogen bonding. Carbene 2 reacts differently from 1 and 3 by forming an iodonium ylide, thus avoiding antiaromatic destabilization of the fluorenyl unit. With BF3 , all three carbenes form zwitterionic Lewis acid/base complexes.
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