The development of a new synthesis strategy towards unconventional carbene ligands is shown in this work. Our major aim was to establish a synthetic strategy that would enable the efficient palladium or nickel catalysed blocking of the C2-position of an NHC with aryl substituents. The C2 blocking of the NHC was performed with an aryl compound, such as a phenyl group, to gain more electronic stabilisation. With these compounds in hand further reactions towards mesoionic carbene (MIC) transition metal complexes have been done. All new prepared compounds were analysed and investigated focusing on their properties. Moreover, the catalytic activity of these complexes were compared to well-known NHC complexes, which are often used in a large variety of catalytic reactions (e.g. click chemistry).
