Sulfonium Boranes for the Selective Capture of Cyanide Ions in Water

摘要

Owing to the presence of low lying σ* orbitals, sulfonium ions are inherently Lewis acidic and can interact with electron-rich substrates to form donor-acceptor complexes. Although this phenomenon has been documented, efforts to use sulfonium ions as a binding site in Lewis acidic hosts have not been reported. As part of our fundamental interest in the chemistry of polydentate Lewis acidic boranes, we have become interested in probing the synthesis and properties of anion receptors containing accessible sulfonium ions. As an added motivation for these studies, we anticipated that the anion binding properties of sulfonium boranes would also benefit from attractive Coulombic effects similar to those occurring in other cationic boron-based anion receptors.