The highly Lewis acidic perfluoropentaphenylborole forms a stable, isolable adduct with the weak Lewis base carbon monoxide. A similar adduct with the unfluorinated borole is observed at low temperature, but this adduct undergoes reaction involving insertion into the B–C bonds due to the greater nucleophilicity of the α-carbons. Together these observations provide concrete chemical evidence for long held presumptions regarding the observed reactivity of organoboranes with carbon monoxide.
Chemical Science
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