An N-heterocyclic carbene with a saturated backbone and spatially-defined steric impact

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Laidlaw, Gillian and Wood, Susanna H. and Kennedy, Alan R. and Nelson, David J. (2018) An N-heterocyclic carbene with a saturated backbone and spatially-defined steric impact. Zeitschrift fur Anorganische und Allgemeine Chemie. ISSN 1521-3749 (https://doi.org/10.1002/zaac.201800423)

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Abstract

The synthesis and coordination chemistry of a saturated analogue of a 'bulky-yet-flexible' N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand are described. "SIPaul" is a 4,5-dihydroimidazol-2-ylidene ligand with unsymmetrical aryl N-substituents, and is one of the growing class of 'bulky-yet-flexible' NHCs that are sufficiently bulky to stabilise catalytic intermediates, but sufficiently flexible that they do not inhibit productive chemistry at the metal centre. Here, the synthesis of SIPaul.HCl and its complexes with copper, silver, iridium, palladium, and nickel, and its selenourea, are reported. The steric impact of the ligand is quantified using percent buried volume (%Vbur), while the electronic properties are probed and quantified using the Tolman Electronic Parameter (TEP) and δSe of the corresponding selenourea. This work shows that despite the often very different performance of saturated versus unsaturated carbenes in catalysis, the effect of backbone saturation on measurable properties is very small.

ORCID iDs

Laidlaw, Gillian, Wood, Susanna H. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4253-7979, Kennedy, Alan R. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3652-6015 and Nelson, David J. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9461-5182;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)