Contributions to the chemistry of carbenemetal chemistry

This paper provides a brief review of our researches on carbenemetal complexes. The main emphasis is on saturated heterocyclic bis(amino)carbene ligands, referred to here as electron-rich olefin- or ERO-derived ligands, as outlined in Sections 2 and 3. The following Section deals with Fischer-type carbene complexes, based on reactions of a transition metal substrate with an imidoyl chloride, Vilsmeyer reagent or Eschenmoser salt. The researches of Sections 2, 3, 4 have resulted in the synthesis, characterisation and selected reactions (including as catalysts) of carbene complexes of V, Cr, Mo, W, Mn, Re, Fe, Ru, Os, Co, Rh, Ir, Ni, Pd, Pt and Au in various oxidation states. A final Section describes some more recent work on C[(NCH2But)2C6H4–1,2], its adducts with M[(NCH2But)2C6H4–1,2] (M = Si, Ge, Sn, or Pb) and the biphenyl- bis(carbene), [C{NCH2But}2C6H3–3,4]2.