Enhanced Activation of Coordinated Dinitrogen with p-Block Lewis Acids

Antoine Simonneau; Michel Etienne

doi:10.1002/chem.201800405

Enhanced Activation of Coordinated Dinitrogen with p-Block Lewis Acids

Chemistry. 2018 Aug 27;24(48):12458-12463. doi: 10.1002/chem.201800405. Epub 2018 Jun 27.

Authors

Antoine Simonneau¹, Michel Etienne¹

Affiliation

¹ LCC-CNRS, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France, 205, route de Narbonne, BP44099, F-31077, Toulouse Cedex 4, France.

PMID: 29656447
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201800405

Abstract

This Concept article highlights recent research on Lewis acid adducts of dinitrogen complexes, including our contributions. After a reminder of the early works, it is demonstrated that such kind of species offers a new platform for dinitrogen functionalization as well as valuable models for the understanding of elementary steps of (bio)catalytic cycles. When possible, parallels regarding this mode of activation from the orbital point of view are drawn between the different systems discussed herein.

Keywords: Lewis acids; dinitrogen complexes; dinitrogen functionalization; frustrated Lewis pairs; p-block.