The acidity-enhancing effect of BH(3) in gas-phase phosphineboranes compared to the corresponding free phosphines is enormous, between 13 and 18 orders of magnitude in terms of ionization constants. Thus, the enhancement of the acidity of protic acids by Lewis acids usually observed in solution is also observed in the gas phase. For example, the gas-phase acidities (GA) of MePH(2) and MePH(2)BH(3) differ by about 118 kJ mol(-1) (see picture).The gas-phase acidity of a series of phosphines and their corresponding phosphineborane derivatives was measured by FT-ICR techniques. BH(3) attachment leads to a substantial increase of the intrinsic acidity of the system (from 80 to 110 kJ mol(-1)). This acidity-enhancing effect of BH(3) is enormous, between 13 and 18 orders of magnitude in terms of ionization constants. This indicates that the enhancement of the acidity of protic acids by Lewis acids usually observed in solution also occurs in the gas phase. High-level DFT calculations reveal that this acidity enhancement is essentially due to stronger stabilization of the anion with respect to the neutral species on BH(3) association, due to a stronger electron donor ability of P in the anion and better dispersion of the negative charge in the system when the BH(3) group is present. Our study also shows that deprotonation of ClCH(2)PH(2) and ClCH(2)PH(2)BH(3) is followed by chloride departure. For the latter compound deprotonation at the BH(3) group is found to be more favorable than PH(2) deprotonation, and the subsequent loss of Cl(-) is kinetically favored with respect to loss of Cl(-) in a typical S(N)2 process. Hence, ClCH(2)PH(2)BH(3) is the only phosphineborane adduct included in this study which behaves as a boron acid rather than as a phosphorus acid.

Ethene-, cyclopropane-, 3-butene-, and cyclopropanemethanetellurol have been synthesized by reaction of tributyltin hydride with the corresponding ditellurides and characterized by 1H, 13C, and 125Te NMR spectroscopy and high-resolution mass spectrometry. The tellurols of this series, with a gradually increasing distance between the tellurium atom and the unsaturated group, have been studied by photoelectron spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations. Two stable conformations of ethenetellurol and cyclopropanetellurol, five of allyltellurol, and four of cyclopropanemethanetellurol were found. In the photoelectron spectrum of vinyltellurol, the huge split between the first two bands indicates a direct interaction between the tellurium lone electron pair and the double bond. In the allyl derivative, a hyperconjugation effect was found for the most stable conformers. In contrast to the vinyl compounds, no direct interaction between the lone electron pair of X (X = O, S, Se, and Te) and the three-membered ring could be observed in the cyclopropyl derivatives. A hyperconjugation-like effect, which is independent of the relative orientation of the X-H group, is found to increase from S to Te. Thus, the type and extent of the interaction between the TeH group and an unsaturated or cyclopropyl moiety are clarified while the first comparison of interactions between the nonradioactive unsaturated chalcogen derivatives is performed.