<br/>Silylenes, the carbene analogues of silicon, have emerged as a class of powerful ligands in coordination chemistry and catalysis since the first N-heterocyclic silylene was reported in 1994 by West. Recent advances in this field have shown that silylenes with different coordination numbers could be available, and thus provided more chemical space for the tuning their electronic properties. However, the employments of silylenes in organic catalysis remained largely unexplored. In this presentation, we report the synthesis of iron and cobalt complexes with multiple dentate silylene ligands and their unique chemical transformations.<br/>We found these silylene-supported transition metal compounds enabled catalytic transformations of C-H functionalization, alkyne trimerization and dinitrogen fixation. The mechanism and structural analysis disclosed the silylenes both act as excellent s-donors and p-acceptors in different coordination spheres. These preliminary results demonstrated that the potentials of silylene ligands in coordination chemistry and homogeneous catalysis can be widely explored.

Iron, cobalt, and nickel complexes with silylene ligands

2019 Fall National Meeting

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