Fine-Tuning of Lewis Acidity: The Case of Borenium Hydride Complexes Derived from Bis(phosphinimino)amide Boron Precursors.

Reactions of bis(phosphinimino)amines LH and L'H with Me2 S⋅BH2 Cl afforded chloroborane complexes LBHCl (1) and L'BHCl (2), and the reaction of L'H with BH3 ⋅Me2 S gave a dihydridoborane complex L'BH2 (3) (LH=[{(2,4,6-Me3 C6 H2 N)P(Ph2 )}2 N]H and L'H=[{(2,6-iPr2 C6 H3 N)P(Ph2 )}2 N]H). Furthermore, abstraction of a hydride ion from L'BH2 (3) and LBH2 (4) mediated by Lewis acid B(C6 F5 )3 or the weakly coordinating ion pair [Ph3 C][B(C6 F5 )4 ] smoothly yielded a series of borenium hydride cations: [L'BH](+) [HB(C6 F5 )3 ](-) (5), [L'BH](+) [B(C6 F5 )4 ](-) (6), [LBH](+) [HB(C6 F5 )3 ](-) (7), and [LBH](+) [B(C6 F5 )4 ](-) (8). Synthesis of a chloroborenium species [LBCl](+) [BCl4 ](-) (9) without involvement of a weakly coordinating anion was also demonstrated from a reaction of LBH2 (4) with three equivalents of BCl3 . It is clear from this study that the sterically bulky strong donor bis(phosphinimino)amide ligand plays a crucial role in facilitating the synthesis and stabilization of these three-coordinated cationic species of boron. Therefore, the present synthetic approach is not dependent on the requirement of weakly coordinating anions; even simple BCl4 (-) can act as a counteranion with borenium cations. The high Lewis acidity of the boron atom in complex 8 enables the formation of an adduct with 4-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP), [LBH⋅(DMAP)](+) [B(C6 F5 )4 ](-) (10). The solid-state structures of complexes 1, 5, and 9 were investigated by means of single-crystal X-ray structural analysis.