Ligand Lability Driven by Metal-to-Borane Pseudorotation: A Mechanism for Ligand Exchange

The discovery of systems that interact with small molecules plays a vital facilitating role in the development of devices that show sensitivity to their surroundings and an ability to quickly relay chemical and physical information. Herein, we report on the reaction of [NiCl₂(dppe)] with decaborane that produces in usable yield a new 11-vertex nickelaborane, [7,7-(dppe)-nido-7-NiB₁₀H₁₂] (1), which shows interesting reactivity and functionality toward carbon monoxide and ethylisonitrile. This contribution describes the synthesis and full structural characterization of 1 and its small-molecule EtNC and CO adducts, 2 and 3, and delineates the dynamic molecular behavior of all of these species in solution. This information sets a foundation from which more advanced work on this and related metallaborane systems can be conceived and provides a more general reference to how NMR spectroscopy, combined with DFT calculations, can be used to analyze the precise locomotion of labile ligands around a metal center held within a borane cluster.

Postsynthetic modifications of [2,2,2-(H)(PPh3)2-closo-2,1-RhSB8H8] with Lewis bases: cluster modular tuning

It has been demonstrated that the reaction of [2,2,2-(H)(PPh3)2-closo-2,1-RhSB8H8] () with PPh3 affords the boron substituted rhodathiaborane-PPh3 adduct, [6,6-(PPh3)2-9-(PPh3)-arachno-6,5-RhSB8H9] (). Building upon this reaction, we report herein that the 10-vertex hydridorhodathiaborane reacts with the Lewis bases, PCy3, py, 2-Mepy, 2-Etpy, 3-Mepy and 4-Mepy to form the rhodathiaborane-ligand adducts, [6,6-(PPh3)2-9-(L)-arachno-6,5-RhSB8H9], where L = PCy3 (), 2-Mepy (), 2-Etpy (), py (), 3-Mepy () or 4-Mepy (), and [8,9-μ-(H)-9-(PPh3)2-8-(L)-arachno-9,6-RhSB8H8], where L = py (), 3-Mepy () or 4-Mepy (). The selectivity of the reactions depended on the nature of the entering Lewis bases, affording the 6,5-isomers, , , and as single products for PPh3, PCy3, 2-Mepy and 2-Etpy; and mixtures of the 6,5-/9,6-regioisomers, /, / and / for py, 3-Mepy and 4-Mepy, respectively. The molecular structures of both regioisomers were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis for the 6,5-isomers, and , and for the 9,6-isomers, and . Variable temperature NMR studies of the reaction between and PPh3 or 2-Mepy demonstrated that at low temperatures there is formation of the 9,6-species that subsequently isomerizes to the 6,5-regioisomer, indicating that for the more sterically hindered Lewis bases, PPh3, 2-Mepy and PCy3, the latter isomer is more stable and accessible through an intramolecular {Rh(PPh3)2} vertex flip. The formation of both isomers with py, 3-Mepy and 4-Mepy indicates that the kinetic and thermodynamic energies of the 6,5 and 9,6 rhodathiaborane-ligand adducts are similar for these Lewis bases. Lewis base bonding to exo-polyhedral boron vertices results in a change of the metal coordination from pseudo-octahedral Rh(iii) in to pseudo-square planar Rh(i) in the adducts. The chemistry described here highlights the remarkable structural flexibility of these polyhedral boron-containing compounds, their modular architecture and their easy postsynthetic modification.

[1,1-(η(2)-dppe)-3-(NC5H5)-closo-1,2-RhSB9H8]: conformational lability and reactivity with H2 upon protonation

Metallaheteroboranes are versatile compounds that can be conveniently modified and eventually tailored by ligand modification at either the metal centre or the boron vertices. Recently, we have discovered that protonation of some rhodathiaboranes affords cationic clusters with interesting reaction chemistry. In order to tune the reactivity of some of these polyhedral boron-based compounds, we have prepared air-stable orange [1,1-(η(2)-dppe)-3-(NC5H5)-closo-1,2-RhSB9H8] (2) by the treatment of the known hydridorhodathiaborane [8,8,8-(H)(PPh3)2-9-(NC5H5)-nido-8,7-RhSB9H9] (1) with dppe. The new 11-vertex rhodathiaborane, 2, reacts readily with triflic acid (TfOH) in CH2Cl2 to give orange cationic [8,8-(η(2)-dppe)-9-(NC5H5)-nido-8,7-RhSB9H9](+) (3). VT NMR experiments have allowed the characterization of a structural closo ↔ nido tautomerism, which involves hapticity changes in the ligation of the {SB9H9-(NC5H5)} moiety to the {Rh(dppe)} fragment, with the proton moving between the Rh(1)-B(3) and the B(9)-B(10) edges of the closo- and nido-isomers, respectively. The proton enhances the stereochemical non-rigidity and Lewis acidity of 3 versus the neutral 2. This modification of the chemical and structural basis permits the efficient heterolytic splitting of the H-H bond, leading to the formation of new hydridorhodathiaborane isomers [8,8,8-(H)(η(2)-dppe)-μ-8,9-(H)-9-(NC5H5)-nido-8,7-RhSB9H10](+) ()4 that are in equilibrium with the reactants, H2 and 3.