A new look at the nido-undecaborate system

The structure of the nido-undecaborate anion, [B₁₁H₁₄]⁻, has been re-examined because of what appear to be discrepancies that were observed between our determination of the structure of the anion in [(Cp₂Zr)₂B₅H₈][B₁₁H₁₄] (1) and previously published structures. The structure of 1 indicated the presence of two bridging H atoms and another pseudo-bridging one whereas those of a series of published structures indicate the presence of a plane of symmetry with two bridging H atoms and one endo-H atom. Thus, we undertook a series of structural determinations and also a computational study at the B3LYP/6-31++G(d,p) level. In addition to 1, the species studied included [NBnEt₃][B₁₁H₁₄] (2), [NBnEt₃][7-Br-nido-B₁₁H₁₃] (3) and [NBnEt₃][7-(η¹-dppm)-nido-B₁₁H₁₂] (4). Our structure of 2 indicated the presence of two bridging H atoms and an endo-hydrogen atom with some bridging character but that of 3 contained three bridging atoms. As expected the structure of 4 contains two bridging H atoms. Calculations of bond parameters fit well with the experimental data as do the ¹¹B NMR chemical shifts. The latter were calculated for the average of the two open face configurations, one with two bridging and one endo-hydrogen and the other with three bridging hydrogen atoms. The difference in energies for these two open face configurations is calculated to be 0.36 kJ/mol, which effectively suggests that the two structures are equally favored.