Intramolecular cooperativity in frustrated Lewis pairs

Körte LA, Blomeyer S, Heidemeyer S, Mix A, Neumann B, Mitzel NW. Intramolecular cooperativity in frustrated Lewis pairs. CHEMICAL COMMUNICATIONS. 2016;52(64):9949-9952.The doubly Lewis-acid functionalised aniline PhN[(CH2)(3)B(C6F5)(2)](2) features two competing boron functions in fast exchange for binding to the central Lewis base. It shows catalytic activity typical for FLPs in H/D-scrambling and catalytic hydrogenation experiments. By contrast, the singly acid-functionalised PhMeN(CH2)(3)B(C6F5)(2) reveals a dramatically smaller catalytic activity in analogous experiments