Hard−Soft Acid−Base Interactions of Silylenes and Germylenes

Role of Lewis acid/base anchor atoms in catalyst regeneration: a comprehensive study on biomimetic EP3Fe nitrogenases

In the quest for sustainable ammonia synthesis routes, biomimetic complexes have been intensively studied. Here we focus on the Peter's group Fe-nitrogenase catalyst with EPPP scorpionate ligands, and explore the effect of anchor atom selection (B, Al, Ga, N and P) and the impact of chloro substitution on the phenyl rings on nitrogen fixation. The reaction profiles of complexes with Lewis basic anchor atoms exhibited energy-demanding reduction steps, with more exergonic protonation steps compared to the smoother reaction profiles observed for catalysts with Lewis acid anchor atoms, also implying that catalyst regeneration is especially challenging for catalysts with Lewis basic anchor atoms. The binding affinities of N2 and H2 to the complexes suggest that the autocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), which ultimately leads to consumption of reactants and catalyst deactivation, is likely to become more prevalent for heavier anchor atoms and be more significant for Lewis basic anchor atom complexes. Out of the studied complexes, boron showed the smoothest reaction profile and the smallest affinity for H2, which supports its superiour role as an anchor atom in accordance with experimental data.

Electrophilicity index revisited

This review aims to be a comprehensive, authoritative, critical, and accessible review of general interest to the chemistry community; because the electrophilicity index is a very useful global reactivity descriptor defined within a conceptual density functional theory framework. Our group has also introduced electrophilicity based new global and local reactivity descriptors and also new associated electronic structure principles, which are important indicators of structure, stability, bonding, reactivity, interactions, and dynamics in a wide variety of physico-chemical systems and processes. This index along with its local counterpart augmented by the associated electronic structure principles could properly explain molecular vibrations, internal rotations and various types of chemical reactions. The concept of the electrophilicity index has been extended to dynamical processes, excited states, confined environment, spin-dependent and temperature-dependent situations, biological activity, site selectivity, aromaticity, charge removal and acceptance, presence of external perturbation through solvents, external electric and magnetic fields, and so forth. Although electrophilicity and its local variant can adequately interpret the behavior of a wide variety of systems and different physico-chemical processes involving them, their predictive potential remains to be explored. An exhaustive review on all these aspects will set the tone of the future research in that direction.

Substitution effects on novel bicyclo[2.2.1]hepta-7-silylenes by DFT

Substitution effects on stability (ΔΕ_s-t) of novel singlet and triplet forms of bicyclo[2.2.1]hepta-7-silylenes are compared and contrasted, at B3LYP/6-311++G** level of theory. All species appear as ground state minima on their energy surface, for showing no negative force constant. Singlets (1_s-24_s) are ground state and more stable than their corresponding triplets (1_t-24_t). The most stable scrutinized silylenes appear to be 2,3-disilabicyclo[2.2.1]hepta-7-silylene (9) for showing the highest value of ΔE_s-t. This stability can be related to our imposed topology and β-silicon effect. The band gaps (ΔΕ_HOMO-LUMO) show the same trend as ΔE_s-t and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energies. Also, the electrophilicity appears inverse correlation with our results of ΔΕ_s-t. The purpose of the present work was to assess the influence of 1 to 6 silicon substitutions on the stability, band gaps, nucleophilicity, electrophilicity, and proton affinity. Finally, our investigation introduces novel silylenes with possible applications in chemistry such as semiconductors, cumulated multidentate ligands, etc. Synopsis Substitution effects on stability (ΔΕ_s-t) of novel singlet (s) and triplet (t) forms of bicyclo[2.2.1]hepta-7-silylenes are compared and contrasted, at B3LYP/6-311++G** level of theory. All species appear as ground state minima on their energy surface, for showing no negative force constant. Singlets (1_s-24_s) are ground state and more stable than their corresponding triplets (1_t-24_t). The most stable scrutinized silylenes appear to be 2,3-disilabicyclo[2.2.1]hepta-7-silylene (9) for showing the highest value of ΔE_s-t. This stability can be related to our imposed topology and β-silicon effect. The purpose of the present work was to assess the influence of 1 to 6 silicon substitutions on stability (ΔΕ_s-t), band gaps (ΔΕ_HOMO-LUMO), nucleophilicity (N), electrophilicity (ω), and proton affinity (ΔΕ_PA). Finally, this new generation has the intrinsic potential to form accumulated multidentate ligands.

N-Heterocyclic silylenes as ambiphilic activators and ligands

Recent developments of the use of N-heterocyclic silylenes (NHSis), higher homologues of Arduengo-carbenes, as ambiphilic activators and ligands are highlighted and a comparison of NHSi ligands with NHC and phosphine ligands is provided.

Ambident Nucleophilic Substitution: Understanding Non-HSAB Behavior through Activation Strain and Conceptual DFT Analyses

The ability to understand and predict ambident reactivity is key to the rational design of organic syntheses. An approach to understand trends in ambident reactivity is the hard and soft acids and bases (HSAB) principle. The recent controversy over the general validity of this principle prompted us to investigate the competing gas-phase SN 2 reaction channels of archetypal ambident nucleophiles CN- , OCN- , and SCN- with CH3 Cl (SN 2@C) and SiH3 Cl (SN 2@Si), using DFT calculations. Our combined analyses highlight the inability of the HSAB principle to correctly predict the reactivity trends of these simple, model reactions. Instead, we have successfully traced reactivity trends to the canonical orbital-interaction mechanism and the resulting nucleophile-substrate interaction energy. The HOMO-LUMO orbital interactions set the trend in both SN 2@C and SN 2@Si reactions. We provide simple rules for predicting the ambident reactivity of nucleophiles based on our Kohn-Sham molecular orbital analysis.

Silicon chemistry in zero to three dimensions: from dichlorosilylene to silafullerane

As one of the simplest examples of functionalized Si(ii) species, the SiCl₂/[SiCl₃]⁻ system is not only fundamentally interesting, but also an important starting point for the assembly of oligosilane chains, rings, and clusters.

Intermolecular interactions in organic crystals: gaining insight from electronic structure analysis by density functional theory

Conceptual density functional theory is exploited to extend the HSAB (hard and soft acids and bases) principle for investigating the locality and regioselectivity of intermolecular interactions in organic crystals.

Dichlorosilylene: a high temperature transient species to an indispensable building block

Isolating stable compounds with low-valent main group elements have long been an attractive research topic, because several of these compounds can mimic transition metals in activating small molecules. In addition, compounds with heavier low-valent main group elements have fundamentally different electronic properties when compared with their lighter congeners. Among group 14 elements, the heavier analogues of carbenes (R(2)C:) such as silylenes (R(2)Si:), germylenes (R(2)Ge:), stannylenes (R(2)Sn:), and plumbylenes (R(2)Pb:) are the most studied species with low-valent elements. The first stable carbene and silylene species were isolated as N-heterocycles. Among the dichlorides of group 14 elements, CCl(2) and SiCl(2) are highly reactive intermediates and play an important role in many chemical transformations. GeCl(2) can be stabilized as a dioxane adduct, whereas SnCl(2) and PbCl(2) are available as stable compounds. In the Siemens process, which produces electronic grade silicon by thermal decomposition of HSiCl(3) at 1150 °C, chemists proposed dichlorosilylene (SiCl(2)) as an intermediate, which further dissociates to Si and SiCl(4). Similarly, base induced disproportionation of HSiCl(3) or Si(2)Cl(6) to SiCl(2) is a known reaction. Trapping these products in situ with organic substrates suggested the mechanism for this reaction. In addition, West and co-workers reported a polymeric trans-chain like perchloropolysilane (SiCl(2))(n). However, the isolation of a stable free monomeric dichlorosilylene remained a challenge. The first successful attempt of taming SiCl(2) was the isolation of monochlorosilylene PhC(NtBu)(2)SiCl supported by an amidinate ligand in 2006. In 2009, we succeeded in isolating N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) stabilized dichlorosilylene (NHC)SiCl(2) with a three coordinate silicon atom. (The NHC is 1,3-bis(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)imidazol-2-ylidene (IPr) or 1,3-bis(2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)imidazol-2-ylidene (IMes).) Notably, this method allows for the almost quantitative synthesis of (NHC)SiCl(2) without using any hazardous reducing agents. Dehydrochlorination of HSiCl(3) with NHC under mild reaction conditions produces (NHC)SiCl(2). We can separate the insoluble side product (NHC)HCl readily and recycle it to form NHC. The high yield and facile access to dichlorosilylene allow us to explore its chemistry to a greater extent. In this Account, we describe the results using (NHC)SiCl(2) primarily from our laboratory, including findings by other researchers. We emphasize the novel silicon compounds, which supposedly existed only as short-lived species. We also discuss silaoxirane, silaimine with tricoordinate silicon atom, silaisonitrile, and silaformyl chloride. In analogy with N-heterocyclic silylenes (NHSis), oxidative addition reactions of organic substrates with (NHC)SiCl(2) produce Si(IV) compounds. The presence of the chloro-substituents both on (NHC)SiCl(2) and its products allows metathesis reactions to produce novel silicon compounds with new functionality. These substituents also offer the possibility to synthesize interesting compounds with low-valent silicon by further reduction. Coordination of NHC to the silicon increases the acidity of the backbone protons on the imidazole ring, and therefore (NHC)SiCl(2) can functionalize NHC at the C-4 or C-5 position.

Kinetic and mechanistic studies of the reactions of diarylgermylenes and tetraaryldigermenes with carbon tetrachloride

The mechanisms of the reactions of diphenylgermylene (GePh2) with CCl4 in hydrocarbon solvents and in THF solution have been studied, employing 3,4-dimethyl-1,1-diphenylgermacyclopent-3-ene (6a) and 1,1-diphenylgermacyclobutane (17) as photochemical precursors to GePh2. In hydrocarbon solvents, the reaction produces Ph2GeCl2 (10) and Ph2Ge(Cl)CCl3 (12) in a ratio of 10:12 ≈ 7, along with a variety of other radical-derived products and small amounts of Ph2GeH(D)Cl (11), which is formed partly by reaction of GePh2 with adventitious HCl. The reaction is much cleaner in THF, where 12 is formed as the major product (10:12 ≈ 0.8); a similar product distribution is obtained in hexanes containing 0.05 mol/L THF, while 12 is the exclusive product in hexanes containing 3 mmol/L NEt3. Rate constants for the reactions of CCl4 with GePh2 and five ring-substituted derivatives were determined by laser flash photolysis, as well as Arrhenius parameters for reaction of the parent (GePh2), in the two solvents. The reactions of GePh2 with CCl4 and CHCl3 have also been studied in 3-methylpentane solution at 78–90 K. Different reaction mechanisms are clearly operative in hydrocarbon and complexing solvents, but both involve modest charge donation from germanium to the substrate in the transition state for the rate-determining step. For the reaction in hydrocarbon solvents, the data are consistent with inner-sphere electron transfer following or in concert with weak Lewis acid–base complexation. A similar mechanism is proposed for the reaction in THF solution, in competition with a second involving nucleophilic attack of the germylene–THF complex at a chlorine atom of the substrate. Rate constants were also determined for reaction of CCl4 with the corresponding tetraaryldigermenes at low halocarbon concentrations in hexanes, along with Arrhenius parameters for the parent (Ge2Ph4). These reactions also proceed via initial Cl-atom abstraction, based on the identity of the products formed in the reaction of CCl4 with tetramesityldigermene.

Do the local softness and hardness indicate the softest and hardest regions of a molecule?

In this work, we will show that the largest values of the local softness and hardness do not necessarily correspond to the softest and hardest regions of the molecule, respectively. Based on our results, we will argue that it is more useful to interpret the local softness and the local hardness as functions that measure the "local abundance" or "concentration" of the corresponding global properties. This new point of view helps reveal how and when these local reactivity indices are most useful.

Can N-heterocyclic germylenes behave as Lewis acids - is there another side to Meller germylenes?

N-Heterocyclic germylenes are known to exist in two structurally different forms, the planar Meller germylenes and the monoimino germylenes that feature an envelope structure. This essay reviews recent reports dealing with radical and cationic Meller type germylenes featuring the monoimino germylene structure, discusses their transformations and relationships, and asks the question whether indeed N-heterocyclic germylenes can be turned into Lewis acids.