In the scenario of a pure ionic pair, all possible interactions between the lone pair of the anion and the lone vacancy LV (unoccupied borane-like valence orbital) of the cation and their contributed energy were considered (Figure ). We observed extremely low charge transfer processes for almost all of the studied N(CF 3 ) 4 -X salts originating from the lone pair of the anion (LP(X -) to the C-F anti-bonding sigma orbital (BD * (CF)) of the scaffold (Figure ).