Stepwise and selective synthesis of chelating, multimetallic and mixed-metal -diborene complexes

The reaction of a pyridyl-substituted, doubly Lewis base-stabilised diborene with different amounts of copper(i) precursors led to the formation of the first chelating pi-diborene complexes, the first pi-diborene complexes in which metals are bound to both faces of the B00000000000000000000000000000000111111110000000011111111000000000000000000000000B bond, and the first mixed-metal pi-diborene species. Coordination of a bis-NHC-stabilised 1-hydro-2-pyridyldiborene to coinage metal fragments was investigated and a series of mono-, bi- and multimetallic diborene complexes were synthesised.