The N-heterocyclic carbene chemistry of transition-metal carbonyl clusters

In the last decade, chemists have dedicated many efforts to investigate the coordination chemistry of N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs). Although most of that research activity has been devoted to mononuclear complexes, transition-metal carbonyl clusters have not escaped from these investigations. This critical review, which is focussed on the reactivity of NHCs (or their precursors) with transition-metal carbonyl clusters (mostly are of ruthenium and osmium) and on the transformations underwent by the NHC-containing species initially formed in those reactions, shows that the polynuclear character of these metallic compounds or, more precisely, the close proximity of one or more metal atoms to that which is or can be attached to the NHC ligand, is responsible for reactivity patterns that have no parallel in the NHC chemistry of mononuclear complexes (74 references).