Borst Mark L G, Bulo Rosa E, Winkel Christiaan W, Gibney Danièle J, Ehlers Andreas W, Schakel Marius, Lutz Martin, Spek Anthony L, Lammertsma Koop
Department of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1083, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
J Am Chem Soc. 2005 Apr 27;127(16):5800-1. doi: 10.1021/ja050817y.
Reaction of o-diethynylbenzene with transition metal-complexed primary phosphines gives in a single base-induced step stable phosphepine complexes as confirmed by X-ray data. At 75-80 degrees C these phosphepines undergo clean cheletropic elimination of naphthalene to give transient carbene-like phosphinidene complexes that can be trapped in high yield by alkenes, alkynes, and alcohols.