Contrasting reactivity of B-Cl and B-H bonds at [Ni(IMes)] to form unsupported Ni-boryls.

[Ni(IMes)] reacts with chloroboranes oxidative addition to form rare unsupported Ni-boryls. In contrast, the oxidative addition of hydridoboranes is not observed and products from competing reaction pathways are identified. Computational studies relate these differences to the mechanism of oxidative addition: B-Cl activation proceeds nucleophilic displacement of Cl, while B-H activation would entail high energy concerted bond cleavage.

Chiral CoY Propeller-Shaped Chemosensory Platforms Based on F-NMR.

Two propeller-shaped chiral CoY complexes built from fluorinated ligands are synthesized and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction (SXRD), IR, UV-vis, circular dichroism (CD), elemental analysis, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), electron spray ionization mass spectroscopy (ESI-MS), and NMR (H, C, and F). This work explores the sensing and discrimination abilities of these complexes, thus providing an innovative sensing method using a F NMR chemosensory system and opening new directions in 3d/4f chemistry. Control experiments and theoretical studies shed light on the sensing mechanism, while the scope and limitations of this method are discussed and presented.