The perfluoroadamantoxy aluminate as an ideal weakly coordinating anion? - synthesis and first applications.

Weakly coordinating anions (WCAs) facilitate the stabilization and isolation of highly reactive and almost "naked" cations. Alkoxyaluminate-based WCAs such as [Al(OC(CF))] ([]) are widely used due to their synthetic accessibility and their high stability. However, small cations are still able to coordinate the oxygen atoms of the [] anion or even to abstract an alkoxy ligand.

The Acidity of the HBr/AlBr3 System: Stabilization of Crystalline Protonated Arenes and Their Acidity in Bromoaluminate Ionic Liquids.

Bulk protonated mesitylene, toluene, and benzene bromoaluminate salts were stabilized and characterized in the superacidic system HBr/n AlBr3 with NMR spectroscopy and X-ray analysis of [HC6 H3 (CH3 )3 ](+) [AlBr4 ](-) (1), [HC6 H5 (CH3 )](+) [AlBr4 ](-) (2), and [C6 H7 ](+) [Al2 Br7 ](-) ⋅C6 H6 (3). Protonation attempts in bromoaluminate ILs led to a complete protonation of mesitylene, and a protonation degree of up to 15 % for toluene in the IL BMP(+) [Al2 Br7 ](-) . Benzene could only be protonated in the more acidic IL BMP(+) [Al3 Br10 ](-) , with a degree of 25 %.

The superacid HBr/AlBr(3) : protonation of benzene and ordered crystal structure of [C(6)H(7)](+)[Al(2)Br(7)](-).

Crystalline and properly ordered protonated benzene as the [C6 H7 ](+) [Al2 Br7 ](-) ⋅(C6 H6 ) salt 1 are obtained by the combination of solid AlBr3 , benzene, and HBr gas. Compound 1 was characterized and verified by NMR, Raman and X-Ray spectroscopy. This unexpected simple and straight forward access shows that HBr/AlBr3 is an underestimated superacid that should be used more frequently.