Alkanes, as the most abundant hydrocarbons, represent an attractive chemical feedstock. However, the inert nature of C-H bonds renders their conversion to useful products difficult. Our group is focused on the activation of C-H bonds using late transition metal complexes based upon a pincer ligand motif. It is now well accepted that a 14-electron metal center (Ir(I)) is the active catalyst in most cases. Synthetically, our approach to access low oxidation state metal centers takes advantage of labile phosphine ligands (i.e. PPh3 and PCy3), which can be easily displaced. Using this strategy, we have employed Ir(I) pincer complexes to perform transfer dehydrogenation in substrates such as cyclooctane and silyl-piperidine.

Activation of C-H bonds via iridium pincer complexes: New motifs in protected M(I) low-valent catalysts

247th National Meeting (2014)

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