Cyclic (amino)(phosphino)carbenes: A structural investigation

ORGN 535

Guido D. Frey, guido@ucr.edu, Jean-Baptiste Bourg, Maoying Song, Michele Soleilhavoup, Bruno Donnadieu, and Guy Bertrand. Department of Chemistry, University of California Riverside, UCR/CNRS Joint Research Laboratory, UMI 2957, Riverside, CA 92521-0403
Over the years the success of homogeneous catalysis can largely be attributed to the development of a divers range of ligand frameworks. Recently, spectacular achievements have been made in this area using stable singlet carbenes. N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) are the most well known, but our group has prepared a variety of stable non-NHCs (PHCs, acyclic PNHCs, CAACs and BACs), which may well become excellent ligands for transition metal catalysis. The P-NHCs might behave as “adaptable” ligands, giving rise to η1-C, η2-C,P or η2-C,N-complexes. This might be important for the stabilization of the resting state of catalysts.