posted on 2007-10-17, 00:00authored byYuzhong Wang, Brandon Quillian, Pingrong Wei, Chaitanya S. Wannere, Yaoming Xie, R. Bruce King, Henry F. Schaefer, Paul v. R. Schleyer, Gregory H. Robinson
The syntheses and molecular structures of four compounds are reported: 1 (RBBr3), 2 (R(H)2B−B(H)2R), 3 (R(H)BB(H)R), and 4 (RBH3) (R = :C{N(2,6-Pri2C6H3)CH}2). These compounds were characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, 1H and 11B NMR, and elemental analyses. Compounds 2 and 3 were prepared by the KC8 reduction of 1 in Et2O. Compound 3 is the first structurally characterized neutral diborene (mean BB: 1.560(18) Å). The nature of the BB double bond in 3 was delineated by DFT computations.