Heteromultimetallic Complexes with Redox-Active Mesoionic Carbenes: Control of Donor Properties and Redox-Induced Catalysis

Mesoionic carbenes (MICs) are currently hugely popular as ligands and triazolylidenes are arguably the most prominent classes of such MICs. We present here mesoionic carbenes with ferrocenyl substituents that can act as metalloligands for the generation of heteromultimetallic iridium(I) and gold(I) complexes. The ferrocenyl substituents allow for reversible oxidation of these heteromultimetallic complexes and these oxidation steps have a strong influence on the donor properties of the MICs. Tolman electronic parameters (TEP) determined from analysis of the iridium-carbonyl complexes show that the neutral ferrocenyl-MIC ligands are stronger donors than the imidazolylidene based carbenes, the one-electron oxidized ferrocenyl MICs are in the range of the tricyclohexyl phosphines and the two-electron oxidized forms which are electron-poor lie in the range of triphenyl phosphines. Taking advantage of the generation of these electron-poor MICs, we show their gold(I) complexes are potent catalysts for the synthesis of oxazolines, with complexes of the oxidized MIC ligands, without any additional additive, outperforming their neutral counterparts by almost a factor of ten. These results thus present the first examples of MIC ligands that are reversibly electronically tunable, and show the potential of the oxidized MIC ligands in types of catalysis where electron-poor ligands are necessary. Furthermore, we also show the potential of MICs for molecular electroactive materials.