A Study of Two Highly Active, Air-Stable Iron(III)-μ-Oxo Precatalysts: Synthetic Scope of Hydrophosphination using Phenyl- and Diphenylphosphine

The importance of phosphines in synthetic chemistry cannot be underestimated. Catalytic hydrophosphination offers an ideal method to prepare P-C bonds without the need for harsh reaction conditions or stoichiometric amounts of waste by-product. We herein report our studies into two biocompatible iron(III) complexes in hydrophosphination chemistry using diphenylphosphine under mild and benign reaction conditions (room temperature, sol-vent-free) and our extended exploration of hydrophosphination with phenylphosphine, which can be tuned to operate in the absence of catalyst under thermal conditions for single hydrophosphination or solvent-free with an iron(III) precatalyst to generate the products of double hydrophosphination.