Syntheses of effectively-shielded N-heterocyclic carbene ligands

A novel type of N-heterocyclic carbene ligand, with a bicyclic motif at the non-carbenic carbons of an imidazolin-2-ylidene core, has been developed. This type of ligand formed an air and moisture stable silver complex even with N,N′-dimethyl NHC. Allylic arylation with a Grignard reagent catalyzed by copper complexes of the NHC ligands proceeded preferentially at the γ-position, indicating the effective steric shielding ability of this framework.