Carbon with the C(0) state has been reported recently, examples of which were known for the past decades. Silicon in the Si(0) state and phosphorus in the P(I) state are also known experimentally. This prompted us to search for divalent N(I) compounds, which resulted in the identification of ::N(←L)(2)(⊕) systems with bicoordinated nitrogen in the N(I) formal oxidation state. It was found that several biguanide derivatives (especially in their protonated state) belong to this class. Quantum chemical analysis provided the structural details, molecular orbitals, charge localization (vs delocalization) trends, etc. This class of compounds has been found to be characterized by two lone pairs on the central nitrogen, very similar to the central carbon in divalent C(0) compounds (::C(←L)(2)). The new bonding environment for nitrogen reported in this article, divalent nitrogen N(I), is clearly different from the nitrenium ions NR(2)(⊕). The electronic structure and reactivity of representative examples of this novel class of divalent nitrogen N(I) systems (::N(←L)(2)(⊕)) have been analyzed in detail, in terms of molecular orbitals, atomic charges, protonation energies, complexation energies with Lewis acids like BH(3), AlCl(3), and AuCl and compared with those of divalent C(0) systems.
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Patel et al. (2011) studied this question.