Hydrogen phosphine-borane activation

In 2006, Stephan introduced the concept of frustrated Lewis pairs , systems in which steric congestion precludes the formation of a Lewis acid-base adduct [25,26]. These combinations offer novel reactivity involving the activation of a variety of small molecules including amines, alkenes, alkynes, and molecular hydrogen [94]. While initially phosphines were the Lewis base of choice for FLP reactions, Al-heterocyclic carbenes were soon proven to be viable candidates as well. For instance, an FLP of ItBu and tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane was shown to react with molecular hydrogen in the usual FLP fashion, forming an imidazo-lium borate salt. This FLP was also used to activate ammonia, aniline, and diphe-nylamine, by addition of the NHC to the amine-borane adduct as shown in Scheme 15.5 [95]. 

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