Coordination Chemistry of Main Group Metals with Organic Isocyanides

Abstract This review deals with advances in the chemistry of organic isocyanide complexes of the main group metals. Isocyanides acting as functional groups show a great dichotomy between nucleophilic and electrophilic characters, which diversifies the course of different multicomponent reactions. The carbon and nitrogen centers can serve as the donor atom in different metal isocyanide frameworks. Along with the variation in ligation properties and different coordination modes, the metalated isocyanides emerge as a well‐established organometallic system with an effective synergistic mechanism, making them chemically and synthetically significant to chemists. However, the linear arrangement of the M−C=N−R induces the formation of multinuclear isocyanide complexes of good thermal stability, which draws the metalated isocyanides into the focal point of advanced reactivity and catalytic studies. A thorough literature survey on molecular main group metal complexes with organic isocyanides has been provided.