Dehydropolymerization of H3B·NMeH2 Using a [Rh(DPEphos)]+ Catalyst: The Promoting Effect of NMeH2.

[Rh(κ2-PP-DPEphos){η2η2-H2B(NMe3)(CH2)2 tBu}][BArF 4] acts as an effective precatalyst for the dehydropolymerization of H3B·NMeH2 to form N-methylpolyaminoborane (H2BNMeH) n . Control of polymer molecular weight is achieved by variation of precatalyst loading (0.1-1 mol %, an inverse relationship) and use of the chain-modifying agent H2: with M n ranging between 5 500 and 34 900 g/mol and D between 1.5 and 1.8. H2 evolution studies (1,2-F2C6H4 solvent) reveal an induction period that gets longer with higher precatalyst loading and complex kinetics with a noninteger order in [Rh]TOTAL. Speciation studies at 10 mol % indicate the initial formation of the amino-borane bridged dimer, [Rh2(κ2-PP-DPEphos)2(µ-H)(µ-H2BN=HMe)][BArF 4], followed by the crystallographically characterized amidodiboryl complex [Rh2(cis-κ2-PP-DPEphos)2(σ,µ-(H2B)2NHMe)][BArF 4]. Adding ∼2 equiv of NMeH2 in tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution to the precatalyst removes this induction period, pseudo-first-order kinetics are observed, a half-order relationship to [Rh]TOTAL is revealed with regard to dehydrogenation, and polymer molecular weights are increased (e.g., M n = 40 000 g/mol). Speciation studies suggest that NMeH2 acts to form the  precatalysts [Rh(κ2-DPEphos)(NMeH2)2][BArF 4] and [Rh(κ2-DPEphos)(H)2(NMeH2)2][BArF 4], which were independently synthesized and shown to follow very similar dehydrogenation kinetics, and produce polymers of molecular weight comparable with [Rh(κ2-PP-DPEphos){η2-H2B(NMe3)(CH2)2 tBu}][BArF 4], which has been doped with amine. This promoting effect of added amine in situ is shown to be general in other cationic Rh-based systems, and possible mechanistic scenarios are discussed.