title: Analysis of the critical step in catalytic carbodiimide transformation: proton transfer from amines, phosphines, and alkynes to guanidinates, phosphaguanidinates, and propiolamidinates with Li and Al catalysts.
abstract: While lithium amides supported by tetramethylethylenediamine (TMEDA) are efficient catalysts in the synthesis of substituted guanidines via the guanylation of an amine with carbodiimide, as well as the guanylation of phosphines and conversion of alkynes into propiolamidines, aluminum amides are only efficient catalysts for the guanylation of amides. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were used to explain this difference in activity. The origin of this behavior is apparent in the critical step where a proton is transferred from the substrate to a metal guanidinate. The activation energies of these steps are modest for amines, phosphines, and alkynes when a lithium catalyst was used, but are prohibitively high for the analogous reactions with phosphines and alkynes for aluminum amide catalysts. Energy decomposition analysis (EDA) indicates that these high activations energies are due to the high energetic cost of the detachment of a chelating guanidinate nitrogen from the aluminum in the proton transfer transition state. Amines are able to adopt an ideal geometry for facile proton transfer to the aluminum guanidinate and concomitant Al-N bond formation, while phosphines and alkynes are not.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Catalysis Research and Innovation, Department of Chemistry, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1N 6N5.
authors.forename: Christopher N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Rowley
authors.forename: Tiow-Gan
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Ong
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Priem
authors.forename: Darrin S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Richeson
authors.forename: Tom K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Woo