Apicophilicity of substituent groups and the structures of some trigonal bipyramidal trifluoromethylphosphoranes

Abstract

Low temperature n.m.r. spectroscopy is capable of distinguishing axial and equatorial substitution in trigonal bipyramidal trifluoromethylphosphoranes allowing the establishment of a partial ‘apicophilicity’ series for some substituent groups which appears to be based chiefly on inductive rather than mesomeric or electronegative parameters of the groups.