Selectivity effects in zirconium-catalyzed heterodehydrocoupling reactions of phosphines

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT

Zirconium compounds are known to dehydrocouple phosphines catalytically. An exploration of the factors that may promote selective heterodehydrocoupling was performed, revealing that steric factors are important but do not provide substantial selectivity. It was observed that κ⁵-(Me₃SiNCH₂CH₂)₂N(CH₂CH₂NSiMe₂CH₂)Zr (1) may be sufficiently Lewis acidic to perform Lewis acid or frustrated Lewis pair catalysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Phosphine
• dehydrocoupling catalysis
• zirconium
• diphosphine

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (CHE-0747612 and CHE-1265608 to R.W.). R.W. thanks the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for a Research Fellowship, and S.C. thanks the Project SEED endowment administered by the American Chemical Society for summer support.