Iodenium or Phosphonium: The Ambi-Valent Character of Iodophosphonium Complexes

Inorg Chem. 2022 Nov 7;61(44):17550-17556. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.2c02543. Epub 2022 Oct 26.

Abstract

The ambi-valent character of the P-I bond in iodophosphonium complexes ensures that it can be electrophilic at either P or I. Herein, we use an ensemble of computational tools and methodologies to probe the nature of this ambi-valent bond. Geometric and atomic electron population analyses yielded strong trends between the electron donating ability of the phosphine and the strength and polarity of the P-I bond. Quasi-atomic orbital analysis demonstrated the near homo-polarity of the P-I bond, and energy decomposition analysis calculations demonstrated the ability to tune the polarization of the bond with only mild changes in secondary structural features. Finally, the ambi-valent nature of the P-I bond was demonstrated to follow hard-soft considerations in reactions with nucleophiles, with harder nucleophiles preferentially forming products of addition to P and softer nucleophiles to I.