In recent years there has been a growing trend to make catalysts incorporating first row transition metals as cheaper and greener alternatives to platinum group metals.  Challenges that must be overcome in this process include the problem that precious metals complexes are low spin and typically undergo 2-electron oxidation/reductions.  In comparison, first row metal complexes are generally high spin unless they are in high oxidation states or bound to very strong field ligands and also undergo many 1-electron oxidation/reductions.  This project has focused on the preparation of a series of pyridyl substituted N-heterocyclic carbenes as ligands to form novel complexes with nickel in an effort to help address some of the above challenges.  The strong s-donation properties and rigid structure of the ligands will hopefully help to overcome the high-spin tendency of first row metals while taking advantage of nickel's 2 electron oxidation/reduction cycle from nickel(0) to nickel(II).  The synthesis and characterization of the pyridul-substituted carbene ligands and their nickel complexes will be presented.

Synthesis of pyridyl substituted carbene complexes of nickel: In search of new chemical catalysts

247th National Meeting (2014)

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