Towards the Strongest Neutral Organic Superbases Based on Intramolecular H-bonds

Utilizing several different trialkylarsine oxides and substituted pyridine N-oxides as a hydrogen bond acceptors in tri-substituted guanidines we designed several very basic superbases possessing intramo-lecular hydrogen bonds (IHB-superbases), with proton affinity in the gas phase that comes very close to that of paradigmatic P4-tBu Schwesinger superbase and with pKa in acetonitrile up to 36 units