Borazine dearomatization 2026-10-20
Borazine dearomatization interrupts the planar pi system, for example when a nucleophile makes one boron tetrahedral. In a metal pi complex, this can change ring hapticity and produce a charged ligand with a different donor count.
The methyl nucleophile attacks an electrophilic ring boron. That boron becomes tetrahedral, bearing its original methyl, the incoming methyl, and its two ring nitrogen neighbors. This interrupts its p-orbital participation, so the metal attaches to the remaining five-atom conjugated segment. is the anionic heptamethylated-ring Cr(CO) complex, paired formally with ; solvent ligation and ion pairing at magnesium are not specified by the spectrum. The original connectivity, with the attacked boron labeled , is shown in the first panel below.
Figure 1.
Structures inferred from nucleophilic addition, Lewis-acid binding and B–Br oxidative addition
. Details.
There are seven methyl groups. The two attached to tetrahedral are inequivalent because the chromium-bound face distinguishes their environments: one signal of relative integral one for each. The other two B–Me groups are equivalent to one another, giving a signal of integral two. The two N–Me groups adjacent to form another equivalent pair, while the N–Me opposite is unique. The predicted methyl-group multiplicities are therefore , the same unordered set as the observed ratio. Multiplying by three gives proton integrals totaling 21. This assignment assumes no fast process interchanging the two methyl environments.
The six-electron neutral ring donor has become an anionic six-electron donor, so Cr(0) retains an 18-electron count: . This borazine dearomatization explains both the changed hapticity and the extra methyl without requiring attack at chromium or loss of a carbonyl.