Mauro Salmi

CC Bond Formation in Diiron Complexes

The growing effort to design new sustainable synthetic methodologies, based on readily available and environmentally friendly transition metals, has boosted research on iron complexes. This review article focuses on C-C-bond-forming reactions occurring at bridging ligands in diiron complexes, aimed at evidencing distinctive aspects and advantages associated with the presence of two adjacent iron centres. A number of diiron-mediated C-C-bond-forming reactions reported in the literature, including nucleophilic and electrophilic additions and insertion and cycloaddition reactions, have been accumulated over the years, which, together with more recent developments, indicate that diiron complexes might provide promising alternatives to precious metals in the challenging field of metal-promoted C-C bond formation.

Iron( ii ) catalyzed dehydrative etherification of alcohols : a convenient route to ferrocenylmethanol-ethers

The iron complex [Fp][OTf] (Fp+[Fe(CO)2(Cp)]+, OTf−SO3CF3−) was found to act as efficient catalyst for the dehydrative etherification of ferrocenylmethanol [HOCH2–Fc] with a variety of alcohols (ROH), providing a valuable route for the formation of ferrocenylmethanol-ethers [ROCH2–Fc]. The complex [Fp][OTf] also catalyzes etherification of propargyl alcohols with other alcohols. The advantages of the method are associated with the use of a non toxic and easily available transition metal as catalyst, and the dehydrative synthetic approach, which produces water as the only by-product.