An Unprecedented Ga/P Frustrated Lewis Pair: Synthesis, Characterization, and Reactivity

Xiong Sun; Qin Zhu; Zhuoyi Xie; Wei Su; Jun Zhu; Congqing Zhu

doi:10.1002/chem.201904081

An Unprecedented Ga/P Frustrated Lewis Pair: Synthesis, Characterization, and Reactivity

Chemistry. 2019 Nov 13;25(63):14295-14299. doi: 10.1002/chem.201904081. Epub 2019 Oct 17.

Authors

Xiong Sun¹, Qin Zhu^{1

2}, Zhuoyi Xie¹, Wei Su¹, Jun Zhu², Congqing Zhu¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, P. R. China.
² State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), and, Department of Chemistry, College of Chemistry, and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, P. R. China.

PMID: 31495997
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201904081

Abstract

Frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs) represent a new paradigm of main-group chemistry. The Lewis acidic centers in FLP chemistry are typically B and Al atoms in the studies reported over the past decade, and most of them are tri-coordinated with strong electron-withdrawing groups. Herein, a Ga/P system is reported which contains an unprecedented four-coordinated Lewis acidic Ga center. This Ga/P species performs classical addition reactions toward heterocumulenes, alkyne, diazomethane, and transition metal complex. Regioselective formation of the products can be rationalized by DFT calculations. The penta-coordinated gallium atom center in these products is rare in the FLP chemistry. This study enriches the diversity of FLPs and demonstrates that a four-coordinated Lewis acidic site with a donor-acceptor bond can also be FLP active.

Keywords: density functional calculations; frustrated Lewis pairs; gallium; heptadentate N4P3 ligand; phosphorus.

Abstract

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