Adding to the family of copper complexes featuring borohydride ligands based on 2-mercaptopyridyl units

Borohydride ligands featuring multiple pendant donor functionalities have been prevalent in the chemical literature for many decades now. More recent times has seen their development into new families of so-called soft scorpionates, for example, those featuring sulfur based donors. Despite all of these developments, those ligands containing just one pendant group are rare. This article explores one ligand family based on the 2-mercaptopyridine heterocycle. The coordination chemistry of the monosubstituted ligand, [H3B(mp)]− (mp = 2-mercaptopyridyl), has been explored. Reaction of Na[BH3(mp)] with one equivalent of Cu(I)Cl in the presence of either triphenylphosphine or tricyclohexylphosphine co-ligands leads to the formation of [Cu{H3B(mp)}(PR3)] (R = Ph, 1; Cy, 2), respectively. Structural characterization confirms a κ3-S,H,H coordination mode for the borohydride-based ligand within 1 and 2, involving a dihydroborate bridging interaction (BH2Cu) with the copper center