The iridium-catalyzed arene C-H borylation reaction of benzylic amines has been developed, which inverts the typical steric-controlled product distribution to provide ortho-substituted boronate esters. Picolylamine was found to be an ideal ligand to replace 4,4'-di-tert-butylbipyridine to induce the directing effect. Preliminary experiments are consistent with a mechanism involving dissociation of one amine of the hemilabile diamine ligand.

A study of the role played by the bidentate ligand used in amine-directed C–H borylation is described. Both reaction conversion and selectivity were significantly impacted when steric congestion and electronic perturbations of the bidentate diamine ligand were made, but a more significant influence was imparted by reducing the bite angle of the ligand. N-Benzylaminopyridine was identified as a general ligand that improves both selectivity and yield for most problematic substrates previously reported with picolylamine as ligand.

Thorium chalcogenolates react with bipyridine or terpyridine to form a series of chelate stabilized Th(ER)4 compounds (E = S, Se; R = Ph, C6F5). 77Se NMR shows that the eight coordinate structures are maintained in solution. These compounds are thermochromic, with color originating from a visible ligand to ligand charge transfer excitation.