Recent advances on N-heterocyclic carbene transition metal complexes for dehydrogenative catalysis using alcohols

Abstract

N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) are green and versatile ligands for the development of transition metal (TM) catalysts. Presented is a brief overview of recent advances on NHC-TM complexes for dehydrogenative catalysis using alcohols. Various NHC-TM complexes, mostly based on noble metals Ir, Ru, and Os, as well as some non-noble metals like Cu, Mo, and Mn, are described. These NHC-TM complexes have been applied to acceptorless alcohol dehydrogenation (AAD) to aldehydes or ketones, and dehydrogenative coupling of alcohols for CO bond, CC bond, CN or CN bond formation. In comparison, the NHC-based Ru and Ir systems are relatively widely studied, the development of NHC-based non-noble metals catalysts is still in its infant for sustainable dehydrogenative catalysis using alcohols.