Mononuclear Cu Complexes Based on Nitrogen Heterocyclic Carbene: A Comprehensive Review.

During the last decade, organometallic, coordination, and catalytic chemistry of the three-dimensional metals such as copper (Cu) has been greatly affected by the emergence of nitrogen heterocyclic carbene (NHC) complexes. The NHCs, and in particular the mononuclear CuI-based ones, have been proven vastly useful in several applications such as in biosynthesis, catalysis, photochemistry, etc. This review tries to thoroughly describe a series of mononuclear CuI NHC complexes and their subcategories such as heteroleptics, and bidentate and tridentate heteroatom complexes, and give some detailed insights on their development, emergence, and applications. A brief outlook is also disclosed to enable other researchers to further develop a platform for future advances and studies in the field of CuI-based NHCs.