Reactivity of Ph3PNLi towards PIII and PV electrophiles

A study of the reactivity of Ph3PNLi towards phosphorus electrophiles allowed us to develop a general method to isolate, or cleanly generate in situ, a broad family of polyphosphinimines displaying PN-P bonds. A preliminary application of this methodology is presented here with the synthesis of various Schwesinger-type bases by a simple new procedure employing Ph3PNLi.