Alkyne polymerizations transition metal catalyzed

In 1954, Ziegler and coworkers [11,12] reported that traces of nickel salts dramatically alter the course of the growth reaction of ethylene with trialkylalanes, the Aufbau process. Instead of the low molecular weight polyethylene which was expected, the only product was butene. This observation culminated in Ziegler s discovery of transition metals that were highly effective in polymerizing ethylene, an accomplishment for which he later shared the Nobel Prize. It also opened the door to transition metal catalyzed hydroalumination reactions. In 1968, Eisch and Foxton showed that addition of nickel(II) salts increased the rate of the hydroalumination of alkynes by approximately 100-fold [13]. The active catalyst was believed to be a nickel(O) species. 

The insertions of alkynes into metal-carbon bonds are thermodynamically more favored than the insertions of olefins into metal-carbon bonds because the cleavage of one carbon-carbon TT-bond in an alk3me requires less energy than the cleavage of the C-C n-bond in an olefin and the sp -C-M bond in the product of alkyne insertion is stronger than the sp -C-M bond in the product of alkene insertion. The insertions of alkynes into the vinyl complexes that result from alkyne insertion are also favored thermodynamically. Thus, multiple insertions of alkynes to form polyacetylenes, just like the multiple insertions of alkenes to form polyolefins, are knoivn. Because of the conducting properties of polyacetylenes, the transition-metal-catalyzed polymerization of alkynes to form polyacetylenes has been studied. ... 

In the Sect. 2.1, a variety of transition-metal-catalyzed hydrothiolation reactiOTis of alkynes with thiols have been described. Transition metal catalysts are clearly useful for the regio- and/or stereoselective addition of thiols to carbon-carbon triple bonds. In contrast, the transition-metal-catalyzed addition of thiols to carbon-carbon double bonds such as alkenes has not been developed hitherto, except for Lewis acid-catalyzed hydrothiolation [8, 67-72]. This is most probably due to the lower coordination ability of alkenes compared with alkynes, which may permit the polymerization of metal sulfide complexes, resulting in inactivation of them as key catalysts for hydrothiolation. 

In addition to the reactions discussed above, there are still other alkyne reactions carried out in aqueous media. Examples include the Pseudomonas cepacia lipase-catalyzed hydrolysis of propargylic acetate in an acetone-water solvent system,137 the ruthenium-catalyzed cycloisomerization-oxidation of propargyl alcohols in DMF-water,138 an intramolecular allylindination of terminal alkyne in THF-water,139 and alkyne polymerization catalyzed by late-transition metals.140... 

Alkynes can be selectively dimerized, cyclotrimerized, or polymerized with a large variety of transition metal and lanthanide catalysts nickel also catalyzes the cyclote-tramerization of HC=CH to cyclooctatetraene. Very electrophilic complexes such as Cp 2LnR and Group 4 compounds,137 as well as 18-electron species such as Cp RuH3(L) and Ru(Tp)Cl(PPh3)2, catalyze the linear dimerization of terminal alkynes 138... 

The addition of transition metal alkyls to alkynes is less common and often less facile than the corresponding metal-hydride additions, although this reaction is probably k r to many metal-catalyzed alkyne polymerizations (see below). In one case where an alkyne adduct has been established, i.e., the reaction of L2PtClMe with electrophilic alkynes, cts-M—C addition is observed (Scheme 4-24) [94]. 

More recently, a Pd(II) salt was shown to catalyze the 1,2-insertion polymerization of a 7-oxanorbornadiene derivative (Fig. 10-16) [50]. The resulting saturated polymer, when heated, gives polyacetylene via a retro-Diels-Alder reaction. (This reaction is reminiscent of the Durham route to polyacetylene discussed below). One advantage of this technique over other routes is that it employs a late transition metal polymerization catalyst. Catalysts using later transition metals tend to be less oxophilic than the d° early transition metal complexes typically used for alkene and alkyne polymerizations [109,110]. Whereas tungsten alkylidene catalysts must be handled under dry anaerobic conditions, the Pd(II)-catalyzed reaction of water-insoluble monomers may be run as an aqueous emulson polymerization. 

The role of transition-metal carbonyls and particularly those of the Group 6 metals in homogeneous photocatalytic and catalytic processes is a matter of considerable interest [1]. UV irradiation especially provides a simple and convenient method for generation of thermally active co-ordinately unsaturated catalyst for alkenes or alkynes transformation. By using tungsten and molybdenum carbonyl compounds as catalysts, alkenes and alkynes can be metathesized, isomerised and polymerized. Photocatalytic isomerization of alkenes in the presence of molybdenum hexacarbonyl was observed by Wringhton thirty years ago [2]. Carbonyl complexes of molybdenum catalyze not only... 

The hydrosilylation of alkenes and alkynes catalyzed by transition metal complexes is often accompanied by side reactions such as isomerization, polymerization, and hydrogenation of unsaturated compounds and/or redistribution and dehydrogenation of silicon hydrides as well as reactions in which both substrates take part, such as dehydrogenative silylation (4,13). The latter reaction, which in certain conditions permits direct production of unsaturated silyl compound, has been a subject of intense study over the last two decades. 

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