Recent Advances on the Chemistry of Transition Metal Complexes with Monoanionic Bidentate Silyl Ligands

The chemistry of transition-metal (TM) complexes with monoanionic bidentate (κ²-L,Si) silyl ligands has considerably grown in recent years. This work summarizes the advances in the chemistry of TM-(κ²-L,Si) complexes (L=N-heterocycle, phosphine, N-heterocyclic carbene, thioether, ester, silylether or tetrylene). The most common synthetic method has been the oxidative addition of the Si-H bond to the metal center assisted by the coordination of L. The metal silicon bond distances in TM-(κ²-L,Si) complexes are in the range of metal-silyl bond distances. TM-(κ²-L,Si) complexes have proven to be effective catalysts for hydrosilylation and/or hydrogenation of unsaturated molecules among other processes.