FIA is defined as the amount of energy released upon binding a fluoride ion in the gas phase.
[7] Lewis acidic antimony complexes with a variety of oxidation states and coordination numbers are known.
Although stibanes have a lone pair electrons, their antibonding orbitals with electron-withdrawing substituents renders them Lewis acidic.
However, as shown in the electrostatic potential map of Sb(C6F5)3, only one site is accessible to Lewis bases due to the asymmetric arrangement of the three aryl rings.
[9] Sb2(o-catecholate)2(μ-O) (2) had been predicted that a Lewis base would bind to two antimony centers in a bridging manner.
First, rotational freedom around the bridge oxygen disrupts the Lewis base binding between two antimony centers.
Second, intramolecular interactions between oxygen at catecholate and antimony competes with external Lewis base binding.
Short Sb–C bond distances of 2.095(2) Å and a tetrahedral space group in the crystal proves that isolated [Sb(C6F5)4]+ is completely free of external electron donors.
In detail, the LUMO can be assigned to as localized orbital on stiborafluorene moiety with larger nodes at the 9-position (Sb).
This cooperativity is supported by the Sb-(μ-F)-Sb moiety in solid state structure of F− binding bisantimony compound 9.
[19] Strongly acidic antimony compounds catalyze organic transformations such as the transfer hydrogenation and the Ritter reaction.
Owing to the strong σ-accepting ability of dicationic Sb ligand, a gold-antimony complex can catalyze styrene polymerization and hydroamination after being activated by AgNTf2.