Frustrated Lewis Pairs (FLPs) are usually a combination of a sterically hindered Lewis base (often phosphines or amines) and a sterically bulky Lewis acid (traditionally a bulky borane). The resulting ‘frustrated’ molecules are fantastically reactive – capable of cleaving dihydrogen, activating alkynes, boranes, olefins and even ring-opening THF and ethers. In their recent Dalton Trans. Hot Article, Doug Stephan and team play around with the Lewis acid element of this handy family and in the process they extend the activity of FLPs even further. Read more for free by clicking on the title of the article below and downloading the paper:
Chloro- and phenoxy-phosphines in frustrated Lewis pair additions to alkynes
Christopher B. Caputo, Stephen J. Geier, Eva Y. Ouyang, Christoph Kreitner and Douglas W. Stephan
Dalton Trans., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1DT11196E
