Search

Although iron has been known and widely used in coordination and organometallic chemistry for decades and N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have also been used for about half a century, their combination surprisingly did not become a hot topic in chemistry until this last decade. This review presents several recent and stimulating developments in homogeneous catalysis done mainly using iron/NHC-based catalysts. Of particular interest are the roles of iron/NHC complexes in cross-coupling Kochi reactions, CC bond formation reactions and hydrofunctionalization, and more particularly in hydrosilylation. Our review summarizes the key developments in these fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first hydrosilylation of esters catalyzed by a well defined iron complex has been developed. Esters are converted to the corresponding alcohols at 100 °C, under solvent-free conditions and visible light activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study on the activity of cyclo-pentadienyl NHC iron complexes in hydrosilylation of amides. A well-defined iron complex with the N-heter-ocyclic carben ligand for the hydrosilylation of amides and N1N-dimethylbenzamide was chosen as the model substrate to identify optimal conditions. It concludes that a well-defined NHC iron complex can be used as an efficient catalyst for the reduction of amides by hydrosilylation using phenylsilane as the silane source.