Synthesis and structural characterization of 9-azido-9-borafluorene: monomer and cyclotrimer of a borole azide.

The reaction of 2,2'-dilithiobiphenyl, generated from 2,2'-dibromobiphenyl and n-BuLi, with BCl(3) using n-hexane as solvent provides a high-yielding, simple preparative route to 9-chloro-9-borafluorene 1a. This in turn can be reacted with trimethylsilyl azide to yield 9-azido-9-borafluorene 2. Compound 2 exists as a cyclic trimer in the solid state, but in dichloromethane solution the monomer can coexist with the trimer. Azide 2 is rather unstable both in the solid state and in solution, and it transforms with trace amounts of water and oxygen to the 1,3,5-tris(2-biphenylyl)cyclotriboroxane that was characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis. Addition of pyridine and t-butyl pyridine to azide 2 afford the corresponding pyridine adducts. Compound 1a as well as the Lewis base adducts of 2 have been characterized by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy, and the structures were confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis. The structural features of azide 2 and the strong Lewis acidity of its boron center have also been investigated by computational chemistry techniques at the MP2 level of theory.