Due to environmental concerns surrounding inefficient and hazardous chemical processes, green chemistry has become a prominent feature in synthetic chemistry. A large focus of green chemistry is using safer solvents, as well as a catalyst to lower the energy needs of reactions, allowing reactions to run more efficiently while also producing less hazardous wast and byproducts. Reductions of a double bond are a highly utilized reaction, and the transfer hydrogenation of ketones and imines into alcohols and amines falls into this category. Transfer hydrogenation reactions use green chemistry ideals such as safer solvents, catalysis, and less hazardous chemical synthesis to provide safe, efficient, and benign chemical transformations. Square planar transition metal catalysts were used to provide safer syntheses with excellent yield. Catalytic transfer hydrogenation has been found to play an important role in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics and vitamins and thus is of interest to find better catalysts for. A series of 7 novel triazole based N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) complexes of rhodium (6) and iridium (1) were synthesized and characterized using multinuclear NMR spectroscopy and single crystal X-ray diffraction. A transmetallation reaction was performed to add the NHC ligand to the metal center, which was followed by the substitution to attach a second tunable ligand.
