Chlorination of 1-Carba-closo-dodecaborate and 1-Ammonio-closo-dodecaborate Anions

Inorg Chem. 2016 Oct 17;55(20):10617-10627. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.6b01867. Epub 2016 Oct 5.

Abstract

Fully chlorinated carborate and dodecaborate cages such as [CHB11Cl11]- and [Me3NB12Cl11]- are prominent examples of valuable and chemically rather inert weakly coordinating anions. While both anions can be obtained by chlorination of the precursors [CH12B11]- and [H3NB12H11]- with SO2Cl2 followed by methylation for the synthesis of [Me3NB12Cl11]-, best results were found using photochemical chlorination with SO2Cl2 for [CH12B11]- and thermal chlorination with SO2Cl2 for [H3NB12H11]-. The hexachlorinated anion [n-Pr3NB12H5Cl6]- was formed readily within 30 min by chlorination of [n-Pr3NB12H11]-, but attempts to synthesize isopropyl-substituted ammonio-dodecaborates with a higher chlorination number resulted in the formation of mixtures and partial decomposition. The silver and trityl salts of the anions [CHB11Cl11]-, [Me3NB12Cl11]-, and [n-Pr3NB12H5Cl6]- as well as the contact ion-pair [Et2Al][Me3NB12Cl11] were also prepared, and the compounds [Ag(NCMe)][Me3NB12Cl11], [Et2Al][Me3NB12Cl11], and [Et4N][i-Pr3NB12H5Cl6] were also characterized by X-ray crystallography.