The first PH-functional phosphines (
1,
3, and
5) containing the 1,1'-binaphthyl-2,2'-bis(methylene) or 1,1'-biphenyl-2,2'-bis(methylene) backbone have been obtained by two-phase phosphination of 2,2'-bis(halomethyl)-1,1'-binaphthyls with PH
3 or in a protected-group synthesis using P(SiMe
3)
3 as the starting material. The 4,5-dihydro-3
H-dinaphtho[2,1-
c:1',2'-
e]phosphepine (
1) is configurationally stable, as indicated by the inequivalence of thetwo CH
2 and naphthyl substituents in the
13C{
1H} NMR spectra. The X-ray crystal structure of
1·0.5C
6H
5CH
3shows an intracyclic C-P-C angle of 99.5(2)
![](/images/entities/deg.gif)
, the interplanar angle of the phosphepine ring system being 67.6(5)
![](/images/entities/deg.gif)
.The borane adduct
7 of the secondary phosphine
1 has been employed for the syntheses of atropisomeric mono-and bidentate ligands (
8-
14) with the bulky 1,1'-binaphthyl moieties. Results of force field calculations on theconformations of
1,
3, and
14 are presented. The ability of these phosphines to form mononuclear and polynuclearcomplexes with transition-metal centers is discussed. Compound
14 exhibits a large variety of low-energyconformations, and some of them seem to be capable of forming mononuclear transition-metal complexes.