Mechanisms of inversion of bond configuration at the tetrahedral boron atom in five-membered chelate cycles

Mechanisms of inversion of the bond configuration at the tetrahedral boron center in five-membered chelate cycles of the 1,3,2-oxazaborolidine and 1,3,2-oxazaborolidene molecules were studied by theab initio MP2(full)/6-31G^** method. It was shown that enantiotopomerization occurs by a dissociative mechanism with the cleavage of the B←N bond and the formation of acyclic intermediates with tricoordinate planar boron atom. The calculated energy barriers to inversion of tetrahedral bond configurations at boron centers in the two chelate complexes are equal to 13.1 and 15.4 kcal mol⁻¹, respectively. In contrast to 1,3,2-oxazaborolidine, internal rotation about the B−O bond in its unsaturated analog makes an appreciable contribution to the reaction coordinate. Translated fromIzvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 2, pp. 250–255 February, 1999.