Ammonium and potassium
salts featuring the chiral mer-[P(C6H4CO2)3]−, mer-[1]−, have
been isolated. Specifically, treating phosphorane P(C6H4CO2)2(C6H4CO2H), 2, with N-containing bases [Nbase = PhNMe2, PhNH2, pyridine (py), isoquinoline,
(−)-brucine, N(n-C8H17)3] afforded ammonium salts [NbaseH]+-mer-[1]−. Each compound
was fully characterized spectroscopically, and four were subjected
to X-ray crystallographic analysis. Salts were isolated with the racemic
mixture of the mer-[1]− anion except in the case of [(−)-brucineH]-Λ-mer-[1], for which the crystal analyzed was
enantiomerically pure. The potassium salt, K-mer-[1], was synthesized by treating 2 with KH. The
solid-state structure of K-mer-[1] is
a coordination polymer consisting of seven- and eight-coordinate K+ ions that are weakly bound by oxygen of either the racemic
anion or the methanol solvent. Preliminary NMR and MS data for the
formation of the Brønsted acid, H(DMF)
n
[1], has also been obtained. An estimate of the
basicity of anion mer-[1]− was obtained from IR measurements of the N–H stretching frequency
for [(n-C8H17)3NH]-mer-[1]. On the basis of these measurements,
anion mer-[1]− was
ranked similar to the classical weakly coordinating anion, [ClO4]−, in terms of its coordinating ability.