Reactivity of a Cationic Bismuth Amide towards Unsymmetric Heterocumulenes

Pnictogen Chemistry: From Light to Heavy Compounds

Pnictogen compounds offer a broad and highly tunable set of characteristics, including pronounced Lewis acidity and basicity, privileged ligand behavior, the reversible switching between different oxidation states, the accessibility of low-valent species, and intriguing photophysical properties. In the recent renaissance of p-block chemistry, researchers are focusing their efforts to investigate and exploit these properties, to reveal unprecedented reactivity patterns and to design fascinating applications based on modern and innovative pnictogen chemistry. This special issue presents current trends in the field of pnictogen chemistry.

Cyclic Hydrocarbon Frameworks Containing Two Bismuth Atoms: Towards 9,10-Dibismaanthracene

When bismuth atoms are incorporated into cyclic organic systems, this commonly goes along with strained or distorted molecular geometries, which can be exploited to modulate the physical and chemical properties of these compounds. In six-membered heterocycles, bismuth atoms are often accompanied by oxygen, sulfur or nitrogen as a second hetero-element. In this work, we present the first examples of six-membered rings, in which two CH units are replaced by BiX moieties (X=Cl, Br, I), resulting in dihydro-anthracene analogs. Their behavior in chemically reversible reduction reactions is explored, aiming at the generation of dibisma-anthracene (bismanthrene). Heterometallic compounds (Bi/Fe, Bi/Mn) are introduced as potential bismanthrene surrogates, as supported by bismanthrene-transfer to selenium. Analytical techniques used to investigate the reported compounds include NMR spectroscopy, high-resolution mass spectrometry, single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses, and DFT calculations.