Solid-state EPR strategies for the structural characterization of paramagnetic NO adducts of frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs).

Anisotropic interactions present in three new nitroxide radicals prepared by N,N addition of NO to various borane-phosphane frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs) have been characterized by continuous-wave (cw) and pulsed X-band EPR spectroscopies in solid FLP-hydroxylamine matrices at 100 K. Anisotropic g-tensor values and (11)B, (14)N, and (31)P hyperfine coupling tensor components have been extracted from continuous-wave lineshape analyses, electron spin echo envelope modulation (ESEEM), and hyperfine sublevel correlation spectroscopy (HYSCORE) experiments with the help of computer simulation techniques. Suitable fitting constraints are developed on the basis of density functional theory (DFT) calculations. These calculations reveal that different from the situation in standard nitroxide radicals (TEMPO), the g-tensors are non-coincident with any of the nuclear hyperfine interaction tensors. The determination of these interaction parameters turns out to be successful, as the cw- and pulse EPR experiments are highly complementary in informational content. While the continuous-wave lineshape is largely influenced by the anisotropic hyperfine coupling to (14)N and (31)P, the ESEEM and HYSCORE spectra contain important information about the (11)B hyperfine coupling and nuclear electric quadrupolar interaction. The set of cw- and pulsed EPR experiments, with fitting constraints developed by DFT calculations, defines an efficient strategy for the structural analysis of paramagnetic FLP adducts.