Alkanes reductive elimination

The proposed catalytic cycle, which is based on experimental data, is shown in Scheme 6. Loss of 2 equiv. of N2 from 5 (or alternatively 1 equiv. of N2 or 1 equiv. of H2 from complexes shown in Scheme 3) affords the active species a. Olefin coordination giving b is considered to be preferred over oxidative addition of H2. Then, oxidative addition of H2 to b provides the olefin dihydride intermediate c. Olefin insertion giving d and subsequent alkane reductive elimination yields the saturated product and regenerates the catalytically active species a. 

The complex TpPtMeH2 was synthesized by reacting TpPtMe(CO) with water (66). While it is stable towards reductive elimination of methane at 55 °C, deuterium incorporation from methanol-c/4 solvent occurs rapidly into the hydride positions and subsequently, more slowly, into the methyl position (Scheme 15). The scrambling into the methyl position has been attributed to reversible formation of a methane complex which does not lose methane under the reaction conditions (75,76). Similar scrambling reactions have been observed for other metal alkyl hydrides at temperatures below those where alkane reductive elimination becomes dominant (77-84). This includes examples of scrambling without methane loss at elevated temperature (78). 

This chapter surveys the reduction of saturated alkyl halides to alkanes. Reductive -eliminations of vicinal dihalides to alkenes are also described briefly. Reduction of vinyl and aryl halides is covered in this volume. Chapter 4.5 hydrogenolysis of allyl and benzyl halides is covered in this volume. Chapter 4.7, and reduction of a-halo-substituted carbonyl compounds CX—CO to carbonyl compounds CH—CO is covered in this volume. Chapter 4.8. 

Both alkane reductive elimination and alkali metal reduction reactions have been used to prepare a family of bis(indenyl)zirconium sandwich complexes.104 Crystallographic characterization of the Pr1 304 and the SiMe2But variants establishes an unprecedented 7y9-hapticity of the indenyl ligand where all nine carbons of the carbocycle are engaged in bonding with the zirconium center. Interestingly, this coordination mode was computationally predicted before structural confirmation.183... 

For the Rh alkyl deuteride complexes, migration of the deuterium is observed only at the a-CH2 group and the terminal methyl group. The extent of deuterium incorporation into the terminal methyl group (versus alkane reductive elimination) decreases as a function of increasing alkyl chain length. Similar to the studies of [Cn Rh P(OMe)3 (R)(H)][BAr 4] complexes, these results suggest that C—H... 

Theoretical studies of catalytic alkane-dehydrogenation reactions by [(PCP )IrH2], PCP rf-C6H3(CH2P112)2-l, 3 and [cpIr(PH3)(H)]+, suggest that they proceed through similar steps in both cases namely (i) alkane oxidation, (ii) dihydride reductive elimination, (iii) /3-II transfer from alkyl ligand to metal, (iv) elimination of olefin.402 The calculated barriers to steps (i), (ii), and (iv) are more balanced for the PCP system than for cp(PH3). 

The most important contributions in this area, however, directly related to bond activation chemistry, and, undoubtedly triggered by theoretical considerations along the lines of Figure 1, were reported by Whitesides and coworkers in 1986 and 1988 [11]. It was shown that the bent, bisphosphine-coordinated platinum chelate complex [(dcpe)Pt(O)] (9) (dcpe = bis(dicyclohexylphosphino)ethane), which could be generated thermally as a "hot" reactive intermediate by reductive elimination of neopentane from its ris-neopentylhydride Pt(II) precursor at around 60-70°C in solution, was able to activate C-H bonds, even of unactivated alkanes. 

In 1978, Schwartz and Gell found that CO would induce reductive elimination of alkane in various zirconocene alkyl hydride complexes with concurrent formation of Cp2Zr(CO)2 (2) (52,53). It was postulated that CO initially coordinates to the 6-e complex 23 forming the coordina-tively saturated species 24 which can then reductively eliminate alkane and/or rearrange to a zirconocene acyl hydride intermediate. When R = cyclohexylmethyl, methylcyclohexane reductively eliminated and Cp2Zr(CO)2 was isolated in 25% yield. 

Sigma-bond metathesis at hypovalent metal centers Thermodynamically, reaction of H2 with a metal-carbon bond to produce new C—H and M—H bonds is a favorable process. If the metal has a lone pair available, a viable reaction pathway is initial oxidative addition of H2 to form a metal alkyl dihydride, followed by stepwise reductive elimination (the microscopic reverse of oxidative addition) of alkane. On the other hand, hypovalent complexes lack the... 

The existence of tr-complex intermediates in C-H activation chemistry has been suggested to explain inverse kinetic isotope effects in reductive elimination processes whereby alkanes are formed from alkyl metal hydrides (Scheme 3).9... 

For the oxidative addition pathway, however, it is not obvious why the C-H bond cleavage reaction should be more facile if the hydrocarbon first binds in the coordination sphere of the metal (Scheme 5, c). One argument could be that the equilibrium between the Pt(II) alkane complex and the five-coordinate Pt(IV) alkyl hydride has an intrinsically low activation barrier. Insight into this question together with detailed information about the mechanisms of these Pt(II) a-complex/Pt(IV) alkyl hydride interconversions has been gained via detailed studies of reductive elimination reactions from Pt(IV), as discussed below. 

Thus to date, virtually all studies of C-C reductive elimination to form alkanes from Pt(IV) have found that these reactions proceed via five-coordinate intermediates. Only very recently have stable examples of Pt(IV) alkyl hydrides been synthesized (53-69). Detailed studies of C-H reductive elimination to form alkanes from these related complexes have identified similar five-coordinate intermediates on the reaction pathway (see following section). 

The initial coordination of the substrate is rate-limiting however, the reductive elimination of the alkane is considered to be rapid ... 

The origin of the persistent radicals which are produced in low yields is of some interest. Simple photochemical silicon-carbon bond cleavage lacks precedent and is not consistent with the failure to observe any alkane or 1-alkene in the photolysis mixture. While the latter could not be expected to survive in the irradiated solution, the former would. A possible route involving photochemical 1,1-reductive elimination is described below. 

There is ample evidence that the reductive elimination of alkanes (and the reverse) is a not single-step process, but involves a o-alkane complex as the intermediate. Thus, looking at the kinetics, reductive elimination and oxidative addition do not correspond to the elementary steps. These terms were introduced at a point in time when o-alkane complexes were unknown, and therefore new terms have been introduced by Jones to describe the mechanism and the kinetics of the reaction [5], The reaction of the o-alkane complex to the hydride-alkyl metal complex is called reductive cleavage and its reverse is called oxidative coupling. The second part of the scheme involves the association of alkane and metal and the dissociation of the o-alkane complex to unsaturated metal and free alkane. The intermediacy of o-alkane complexes can be seen for instance from the intramolecular exchange of isotopes in D-M-CH3 to the more stable H-M-CH2D prior to loss of CH3D. 

On the other hand, the use of [Rh(CO)2Cl]2 as a catalyst results in ring opening of the siloxycyclopropanes 13 to the silyl enol ethers 14 with high stereoselectivity [10]. The 2-siloxyrhodacyclobutane 15a is proposed to undergo j8-elimination to give jr-allylrhodium 16a followed by reductive elimination to the silyl enol ether 14a. 1-Trimethylsiloxybicyclo[n.l.0]alkanes serve as / -metallo-carbonyl compounds via desilylation with a variety of transition metals [11]. The palladium-catalyzed reaction of the siloxycyclopropanes 17 under carbon monoxide in chloroform provides a route to the 4-keto pimelates 18. In the presence of aryl triflates, the 1,4-dicarbonyl compounds 19 are... 

Kinetic analyses and deuterium-labeling experiments have demonstrated that, remarkably, the reductive elimination of TEA and the formation of intermediate C is the rate-determining step in the (de)hydrogenation cycle. Accordingly, hydrogenation of the acceptor appears to be slower than dehydrogenation of the alkane substrate. This contrasts with the fact that catalytic olefin hydrogenation is well-established in transition-metal-mediated chemistry [10]. 

Alkane metathesis was first reported in 1997 [84]. Acyclic alkanes, with the exception of methane, in contact with a silica supported tantalum hydride ](=SiO)2TaH] were transformed into their lower and higher homologues (for instance, ethane was transformed into methane and propane). Later, the reverse reaction was also reported [85]. Taking into accountthe high electrophilic character ofa tantalum(III) species, two mechanistic hypotheses were then envisaged (i) successive oxidative addition/reductive elimination steps and (ii) o-bond metathesis. Further work has shown that aLkyhdene hydrides are critical intermediates, and that carbon-carbon... 

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