LAUSR

We report herein the possibility to perform the hydrosilylation of carbonyls using actinide complexes as catalysts. While complexes of the uranyl ion [UO2]2+ have been poorly considered in catalysis, we show the potentialities of the Lewis acid [UO2(OTf)2] (1) in the catalytic hydrosilylation of a series of aldehydes. [UO2(OTf)2] proved to be a very active catalyst affording distinct reduction products depending on the nature of the reductant. With Et3SiH, a number of aliphatic and aromatic aldehydes are reduced into symmetric ethers, while iPr3SiH yielded silylated alcohols. Studies of the reaction mechanism led to the isolation of aldehyde/uranyl complexes, [UO2(OTf)2(4-Me2N-PhCHO)3], [UO2(μ-κ2-OTf)2(PhCHO)]n, and [UO2(μ-κ2-OTf)(κ1-OTf)(PhCHO)2]2, which have been fully characterized by NMR, IR, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction.