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The catalytic acceptorless dehydrogenative oxidation of biosourced alcohols into carboxylic acid salts was achieved using earth-abundant Fe and Mn complexes that feature aliphatic PNP pincer ligands in good to excellent yields. The Fe derivatives were characterized by using 57Fe NMR spectroscopy. Mn pincer catalysts are catalytically more efficient than their Fe counterparts thanks to their robustness under basic conditions. Attempts to generate aldehydes from alcohols were not successful using the Fe and Mn species, but a commercially available Ru analogue achieves this transformation selectively under very mild conditions in the presence of a large excess of acetone as a hydrogen acceptor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Readily accessible cationic IrIII metallacycles catalyze efficiently the chemoselective hydrosilylation of tertiary and secondary amides to amines. The catalyst described herein operates at low loadings using inexpensive 1,1,3,3-tetramethyldisiloxane and allows fast reactions with high yields, selectivities, and turnover numbers. A transient iminium intermediate has been observed for the first time by using mass spectrometry, and the activation of the catalyst and the silane reagent have been studied by using DFT calculations. These fundamental insights support the present and future improvements of IrIII metallacycles through proper ligand modifications and enable further broad applications of catalysts based on metallacycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A selected diphosphine binuclear gold(I) chloride complex was combined with a silver salt to catalyze efficiently, for the first time, the asymmetric intramolecular hydroamination of alkenes with high conversions and enantioselectivities, in mild conditions and in presence of water. Both enantiomers of the products could be obtained by controlling the molecular ion-pairs through the solvent polarity. The gold(I) cationic active species was characterized unambiguously at the solid state by X-ray analysis and in solution by DOSY 1H NMR experiments. No contribution of silver chloride was observed on the bonding mode of the catalyst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]