Palladium-catalyzed activation of HnA-AHnbonds (AHn= CH3, NH2, OH, F)

Bryan Phuti Moloto, Pascal Vermeeren, Marco Dalla Tiezza, Tessel Bouwens, Catharine Esterhuysen, Trevor A. Hamlin*, F. Matthias Bickelhaupt

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We have quantum chemically studied activation of HnA-AHn bonds (AHn = CH3, NH2, OH, F) by PdLn catalysts with Ln = no ligand, PH3, (PH3)2, using relativistic density functional theory at ZORA-BLYP/TZ2P. The activation energy associated with the oxidative addition step decreases from H3C-CH3 to H2N-NH2 to HO-OH to F-F, where the activation of the F-F bond is barrierless. Activation strain and Kohn-Sham molecular orbital analyses reveal that the enhanced reactivity along this series of substrates originates from a combination of (i) reduced activation strain due to a weaker HnA-AHn bond; (ii) decreased Pauli repulsion as a result of a difference in steric shielding of the HnA-AHn bond; and (iii) enhanced backbonding interaction between the occupied 4d atomic orbitals of the palladium catalyst and σ∗ acceptor orbital of the substrate.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)181-191
Number of pages11
JournalPure and Applied Chemistry
Volume95
Issue number3
Early online date2 Feb 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Mar 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF, UID grant no. 115979 and CPRR grant no. 141992), Nuffic’s Netherlands Education Support Office (NESO), and Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for financial support. This work was carried out on the Dutch national e-infrastructure with the support of SURF cooperative.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 IUPAC & De Gruyter.

Funding

We thank the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF, UID grant no. 115979 and CPRR grant no. 141992), Nuffic’s Netherlands Education Support Office (NESO), and Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for financial support. This work was carried out on the Dutch national e-infrastructure with the support of SURF cooperative.

Keywords

  • Activation strain model
  • bond activation
  • density functional calculations
  • homogeneous catalysis
  • oxidative addition
  • VCCA-2022

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