| Abstract: | The cover picture shows how trimeric perfluoro‐ortho‐phenylene mercury (center), one of the simplest trifunctional Lewis acidic hosts, interacts with organic molecules to afford various adducts. The planarity of this trinuclear complex as well as its overall polarizability compounded with relativistic effects at mercury permits the occurrence of noncovalent interactions and accounts for the tendency of this compound to form cofacial dimers as observed in the structure of the acetone adduct (top left). With a triply coordinated acetone molecule, the structure of this adduct also substantiates the cooperative effects that arise from the proximity and accessibility of the mercury centers. The complexation of arenes, such as benzene (bottom left) and naphthalene (bottom right), also occurs and leads to the formation of binary stacks in which the arene establishes multiple linkages with the mercury centers of the trifunctional Lewis acids. In addition to displaying unusual coordination environment, the arene units present in those stacks exhibit remarkable phosphorescent properties. For more details, see the paper by F. P. Gabbaï, R. E. Taylor, and M. R. Haneline on p. 5188 ff. |
