Alkynes metal-alkyne linkages

Like alkynes, a variety of mechanistic motifs are available for the transition metal-mediated etherification of alkenes. These reactions are typically initiated by the attack of an oxygen nucleophile onto an 72-metalloalkene that leads to the formation of a metal species. As described in the preceding section, the G-O bond formation event can be accompanied by a wide range of termination processes, such as fl-H elimination, carbonylation, insertion into another 7r-bond, protonolysis, or reductive elimination, thus giving rise to various ether linkages. 

These metal-alkynyl complexes can be protonated to afford the free alkynes and parent cobalt hydroxo complex (comparable reactivity to their alkyl and aryl congeners), but have proven inert toward oxygenation and carbonylation. They are also thermally stable up to 100 °C. Attempts to explore the reactions of these compounds with unsaturated hydrocarbons were typically fruitless. The one exception is the reaction between 53 and its parent alkyne (HC = C02Me, Scheme 6), which under benzene reflux effects catalytic, stereospecific, linear trimerisation of the alkyne to afford ( , )-buta-l,3-dien-5-yne. The reaction was, however, slow (4.5 turnovers in 20 h) and suffered from catalytic deactivation due to hydrolysis of 53, which subsequently reacted with adventitious CO2 to irreversibly form an inert /x-carbonato complex. The catalytic cycle was concluded to involve initially a double coordination-insertion of the C = C bond of methylpropiolate into the Co-Caikyne linkage. Subsequent hydrolysis of the Co-C bond by a third equivalent of HC = CC02Me would then afford the observed product and regenerate 53. However, a definitive explanation for the stereospecificity of the process was not established. 

One more, simple, group 9 vinyl is known, complex 174, which is obtained by the addition of HCl to the f/ -DMAD complex 172 (Scheme 52), a process believed to result from protonation of the metal centre with subsequent insertion of the alkyne into the Rh—H linkage, given the trans-P geometry of the resulting vinyl ligand. ... 

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