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Planar bismuth compounds exhibit tunable Lewis acidity and high catalytic activity for lactone polymerization.

Planar bismuth(III) compounds featuring a N

3-R-1,4,2-dioxazol-5-ones are a class of compounds that are increasingly finding diverse uses, including as regioselective amidation reagents and as electrolyte additives that enable long cycling lifetimes in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Conventional methods for their synthesis tend to be slow and time-consuming, requiring isolation and thorough drying of a hydroxamic acid intermediate, followed by a separate cyclization step with N,N′-carbonyldiimidazole. Furthermore, the cyclization is typically performed in dichloromethane, an environmentally harmful solvent. This work demonstrates a new one-pot method for the synthesis of these compounds that eliminates the need for isolation of the intermediate or the use of halogenated solvents. The reaction is mainly performed using environmentally benign ethyl acetate and a relatively small amount of N,N-dimethylformamide. The reaction proceeds readily at room temperature and requires no expensive metal catalysts to function.

The first use of phosphenium cations in asymmetric catalysis is reported. A diazaphosphenium triflate, prepared in two or three steps on a multigram scale from commercially available materials, catalyzes the hydroboration or hydrosilylation of cyclic imines with enantiomeric ratios of up to 97:3. Catalyst loadings are as low as 0.2 mol %. Twenty-two aryl/heteroaryl pyrrolidines and piperidines were prepared using this method. Imines containing functional groups such as thiophenes or pyridyl rings that can challenge transition-metal catalysts were reduced employing these systems.

We report the first application of a rigid P2N3 pincer ligand in p-block chemistry by preparing its bismuth complex. We also report the first example of bismuth complexes featuring a flexible PNP pincer ligand, which shows phase-dependent structural dynamics. Highly electrophilic, albeit thermally unstable, Bi(iii) complexes of the PNP ligand were also prepared.