Halogen Complexes of Anionic N-Heterocyclic Carbenes

The lithium complexes [(WCA-NHC)Li(toluene)] of anionic N-heterocyclic carbenes with a weakly coordinating anionic borate moiety (WCA-NHC) reacted with iodine, bromine, or CCl₄ to afford the zwitterionic 2-halogenoimidazolium borates (WCA-NHC)X (X=I, Br, Cl; WCA=B(C₆F₅)₃, B{3,5-C₆H₃(CF₃)₂}₃; NHC=IDipp=1,3-bis(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)imidazolin-2-ylidene, or NHC=IMes=1,3-bis(2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)imidazolin-2-ylidene). The iodine derivative (WCA-IDipp)I (WCA=B(C₆F₅)₃) formed several complexes of the type (WCA-IDipp)I ⋅ L (L=C₆H₅Cl, C₆H₅Me, CH₃CN, THF, ONMe₃), revealing its ability to act as an efficient halogen bond donor, which was also exploited for the preparation of hypervalent bis(carbene)iodine(I) complexes of the type [(WCA-IDipp)I(NHC)] and [PPh₄][(WCA-IDipp)I(WCA-NHC)] (NHC=IDipp, IMes). The corresponding bromine complex [PPh₄][(WCA-IDipp)₂Br] was isolated as a rare example of a hypervalent (10-Br-2) system. DFT calculations reveal that London dispersion contributes significantly to the stability of the bis(carbene)halogen(I) complexes, and the bonding was further analyzed by quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) analysis.