Tuning the activity and selectivity of iridium-NSiN catalyzed CO2 hydrosilylation processes

The catalytic activity of various Ir-NSiN-type complexes, containing different ancillary ligands and/or modified NSiN-type ligands, as catalyst precursors for CO hydrosilylation has been studied. The results from these experiments evidenced that the activity and selectivity of the above mentioned catalytic systems depend on the nature of the ancillary ligands as well as on the reaction parameters (temperature and CO pressure). Thus, the best catalytic performance has been achieved at 328 K and 8 bar of CO using the complex [Ir(H)(CFCO)(NSiN∗)(coe)] (NSiN∗ = fac-bis-(4-methylpyridine-2-yloxy)methylsilyl) as a catalyst precursor.The authors express their appreciation to the support from the Ministry of Higher Education, Saudi Arabia, in establishment of the Center of Research Excellence in Petroleum Refining & Petrochemicals at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) and the support from KFUPM-University of Zaragoza research agreement. Financial support from MINECO/FEDER (projects CONSOLIDER INGENIO-2010 MULTICAT CSD2009-00050), Universidad de Zaragoza (project UZ2015-CIE-04) and DGA/FSE (group E07) is also acknowledged.Peer Reviewe