Bonding bridge ‘electron-deficient

Hydrogen bonds contain linear 4e,3-center E H M bridge bonds with hypervalent hydrogen, while sigma complexes contain bent 2e,3-center E-H-M bridge bonds with electron-deficient hydrogen. In the former, the metal acts as a weak base, while in the latter it acts as a weak acid. In principle, intermediate situations are possible where both interactions compete but information is still sparse in this area. 

The compact bond diagrams of planar and perpendicular hypervalent l2 6 those of staggered and bridged "electron deficient" B2Hg are shown in Figures 4 and 5. 

This is known as a hydrogen-bridge structure. There are not enough electrons to make all the dotted-line bonds electron-pairs and hence it is an example of an electron-deficient compound. The structure of diborane may be alternatively shown as drawn in... 

Localized Bonds. Because boron hydrides have more valence orbitals than valence electrons, they have often been called electron-deficient molecules. This electron deficiency is partiy responsible for the great interest surrounding borane chemistry and molecular stmcture. The stmcture of even the simplest boron hydride, diborane(6) [19287-45-7] 2 6 sufficientiy challenging that it was debated for years before finally being resolved (57) in favor of the hydrogen bridged stmcture shown. 

The positive bromine which leads to bromonium ion intermediates is softer and also has unshared electron pairs which can permit a total of four electrons to participate in the bridged bromonium ion intermediate. This would be expected to lead to a more strongly bridged and more stable species than is possible in the case of the proton. The bromonium ion can be represented as having two covalent bonds to bromine and is electrophilic but not electron-deficient. 

The boranes are electron-deficient compounds (Section 3.8) we cannot write valid Lewis structures for them, because too few electrons are available. For instance, there are 8 atoms in diborane, so we need at least 7 bonds however, there are only 12 valence electrons, and so we can form at most 6 electron-pair bonds. In molecular orbital theory, these electron pairs are regarded as delocalized over the entire molecule, and their bonding power is shared by several atoms. In diborane, for instance, a single electron pair is delocalized over a B—H—B unit. It binds all three atoms together with bond order of 4 for each of the B—H bridging bonds. The molecule has two such bridging three-center bonds (9). 

A possible formulation for I is illustrated below. This could be formed by the heterolytic cleavage of a Ru-Ru bond an corresponding movement of a carbonyl from a terminal site to a bridging one to maintain the charge neutrality of both Ru atoms. The result would be to leave one ruthenium atom electron deficient (a 16 electron species) and capable of coordinating a two electron donor to give another intermediate I. ... 

Diarylmethylenecyclopropa[6]naphthalenes 14, unlike their benzene parent counterparts which give cycloaddition reactions at the cyclopropene bridge bond [10a], react on the exo double bond in Diels-Alder cycloadditions (see Sect. 2.1.1) [10b]. The reactions of 14 with the highly electron-deficient acetylenic(phenyl)iodonium triflate 584 give products 586a and 587, which are believed to derive from unstable primary [2 + 2] cycloadducts 585 (Scheme 82) [10b],... 

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