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In chemistry, a frustrated Lewis pair is a compound or mixture containing a Lewis acid and a Lewis base that, because of steric hindrance, cannot combine to form a classical adduct. Many kinds of FLPs have been devised, and many simple substrates exhibit activation.
The discovery that some FLPs split H2 triggered a rapid growth of research into FLPs. Because of their "unquenched" reactivity, such systems are reactive toward substrates that can undergo heterolysis. For example, many FLPs split hydrogen molecules. Thus, a mixture of tricyclohexylphosphine and trisborane reacts with hydrogen to give the respective phosphonium and borate ions:
This reactivity has been exploited to produce FLPs which catalyse hydrogenation reactions.
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