2-Pyridylidenes Ligands for Iron Catalysis – 2Pyr4FeCat

Since their discovery, N-Heterocyclic Carbene (NHC) ligands were subjected to an impressive development in organometallic catalysis, leading to a successful use in many metal-catalysed transformations. Despite remarkable breakthroughs achieved to date, the design of complementary architectures, displaying various steric and electronic properties, easy to access, and able to induce new types of reactivity, remains a currently very active field of research arousing high interest from the scientific community. In this context, the proposed project focus on a recent class of NHC ligands named 2 pyridylidenes. Featuring exceptional electronic properties and much easier to synthesize, these ligands constitute motifs of choice for applications in organometallic catalysis. Therefore, considering the great and underestimated potential of these species, this ambitious and innovative project aim to study the 2-pyridylidene scaffold as ligand in transition-metal complexes and enlarge its very limited library. The study of the structure-activity relationship combined with the obtained results will help us to position the 2-pyridylidenes relative to commonly used NHC ligands. With the environmental crisis in mind, a particular emphasis will be placed on earth-abundant metals, and especially iron, in order to prepare the first pyridylidene-based iron complexes. The catalytic activity as well as the induced selectivity will be evaluated for all the newly prepared organometallic species in transformations of high interest for both academic and industrial settings.