Mechanochemistry for facilitated access to N,N-diaryl NHC metal complexes

Abstract

A user-friendly and solvent-free mechanosynthetic strategy allowed light-sensitive silver(i) complexes featuring N,N-diaryl N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHC), including challenging and sterically hindered ligands, to be yielded efficiently. The first transmetalations using ball-milling to obtain palladium and copper NHC complexes were performed. A convenient one-pot two-step metalation/transmetalation procedure was also realized.