Hydrogen and Amine Activation by a Frustrated Lewis Pair of a Bulky N-Heterocyclic Carbene and B(C6F5)3

摘要

N-Heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs), one class of stable and isolable carbenes, are a well-studied ligand that can often replace phosphines in organometallic complexes, which have found extensive use in catalysis. NHCs are also utilized as organocatalysts in their own right, and there are growing number of reports of unique and unexpected reactivity of a variety of stable carbenes. For example, recent studies from Bertrand and co-workers showed that certain (amino)-(alkyl)carbenes react directly with dihydrogen and ammonia, mimicking metalloid oxidative addition processes (Scheme 1 a).