Chalcogen bonding is a little explored noncovalent interaction similar to halogen bonding. This manuscript describes the first application of selenium-based chalcogen bond donors as Lewis acids in organic synthesis. To this end, the solvolysis of benzhydryl bromide served as a halide abstraction benchmark reaction. Chalcogen bond donors based on a bis(benzimidazolium) core provided rate accelerations relative to the background reactivity by a factor of 20–30. Several comparative experiments provide clear indications that the observed activation is due to chalcogen bonding. The performance of the chalcogen bond donors is superior to that of a related brominated halogen bond donor.

中文翻译：

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硒基硫族元素键激活碳-卤素键

硫属元素键是一种与卤素键相似的探索性非共价相互作用。该手稿描述了基于硒的硫属元素键供体作为路易斯酸在有机合成中的首次应用。为此，苯甲基溴的溶剂分解用作卤化物提取基准反应。基于双（苯并咪唑鎓）核心的硫属元素键供体相对于背景反应性提供了20-30倍的速率加速。几个比较实验清楚地表明，观察到的活化是由于硫族元素键引起的。硫属元素键给体的性能优于相关的溴化卤素键给体的性能。