Metal-catalysed reactions enabled by guanidine-type ligands

Guanidines, which exist widely in nature, have been frequently utilised as strong Brønsted bases in organic chemistry. As ligands, guanidines can have different coordination modes with the metal center. However, the exploitation of these guanidine complexes as catalysts has been much less successful. The anionic counterpart of guanidine, which is known as guanidinate, is also able to function as a ligand. The catalytic activities of metal-guanidinate complexes are of great interest to chemists. The potential of catalytic guanidine or guanidinate metal complexes to catalyse unique chemical transformations is immensely promising. This field is currently being pursued with great interest by synthetic organic chemists. In this review, the representative reactions enabled by guanidine and guanidinate metal complexes are highlighted.