Carbene complexes electrophilic addition reactions

Although a variety of new preparative routes has been developed in recent years (for reviews see refs 1 -10), the transformation of the metal-carbonyl carbon bond of a metal-carbonyl complex into a metal-carbene carbon bond is still the most useful and versatile method for preparing transition-metal carbene complexes. The addition of a carbanion to the carbon atom of a carbonyl ligand yields an anionic acyl complex that subsequently can be reacted with an electrophile to give a neutral carbene complex. Thus, the syntheses of anionic acyl and neutral carbene complexes are closely related, for almost all the carbene complexes considered in this section acyl complexes are precursors, although most have not been isolated and characterized. The syntheses of acyl complexes via CO insertion (for reviews see refs. 11, 12) or by reaction of metal carbonyl anions with acyl halides is outside the scope of this section. 

Photolytically generated carbene, as mentioned above, undergoes a variety of undiscriminated addition and insertion reactions and is therefore of limited synthetic utility. The discovery (3) of the generation of carbenes by the zinc-copper couple, however, makes carbene addition to double bonds synthetically useful. The iodo-methylzinc iodide complex is believed to function by electrophilic addition to the double bond in a three-center transition state giving essentially cis addition. Use of the... 

The effect of metal basicity on the mode of reactivity of the metal-carbon bond in carbene complexes toward electrophilic and nucleophilic reagents was emphasized in Section II above. Reactivity studies of alkylidene ligands in d8 and d6 Ru, Os, and Ir complexes reinforce the notion that electrophilic additions to electron-rich compounds and nucleophilic additions to electron-deficient compounds are the expected patterns. Notable exceptions include addition of CO and CNR to the osmium methylene complex 47. These latter reactions can be interpreted in terms of non-innocent participation of the nitrosyl ligand. 

Calculations [28] on the formation of cyclopropanes from electrophilic Fischer-type carbene complexes and alkenes suggest that this reaction does not generally proceed via metallacyclobutane intermediates. The least-energy pathway for this process starts with electrophilic addition of the carbene carbon atom to the alkene (Figure 1.9). Ring closure occurs by electrophilic attack of the second carbon atom... 

In addition to catalytically active transition metal complexes, several stable, electrophilic carbene complexes have been prepared, which can be used to cyclopropanate alkenes (Figure 3.32). These complexes have to be used in stoichiometric quantities to achieve complete conversion of the substrate. Not surprisingly, this type of carbene complex has not attained such broad acceptance by organic chemists as have catalytic cyclopropanations. However, for certain applications the use of stoichiometric amounts of a transition metal carbene complex offers practical advantages such as mild reaction conditions or safer handling. 

The intramolecular addition of acylcarbene complexes to alkynes is a general method for the generation of electrophilic vinylcarbene complexes. These reactive intermediates can undergo inter- or intramolecular cyclopropanation reactions [1066 -1068], C-H bond insertions [1061,1068-1070], sulfonium and oxonium ylide formation [1071], carbonyl ylide formation [1067,1069,1071], carbene dimerization [1066], and other reactions characteristic of electrophilic carbene complexes. 

Ylide formation, and hence X-H bond insertion, generally proceeds faster than C-H bond insertion or cyclopropanation [1176], 1,2-C-H insertion can, however, compete efficiently with X-H bond insertion [1177]. One problem occasionally encountered in transition metal-catalyzed X-H bond insertion is the deactivation of the (electrophilic) catalyst L M by the substrate RXH. The formation of the intermediate carbene complex requires nucleophilic addition of a carbene precursor (e.g. a diazocarbonyl compound) to the complex Lj,M. Other nucleophiles present in the reaction mixture can compete efficiently with the carbene precursor, or even lead to stable, catalytically inactive adducts L M-XR. For this reason carbene X-H bond insertion with substrates which might form a stable complex with the catalyst (e.g. amines, imidazole derivatives, thiols) often require larger amounts of catalyst and high reaction temperatures. 

Diazocarbonyl compounds, especially diazo ketones and diazo esters [19], are the most suitable substrates for metal carbene transformations catalyzed by Cu or Rh compounds. Diazoalkanes are less useful owing to more pronounced carbene dimer formation that competes with, for example, cyclopropanation [7]. This competing reaction occurs by electrophilic addition of the metal-stabilized carbocation to the diazo compound followed by dinitrogen loss and formation of the alkene product that occurs with regeneration of the catalytically active metal complex (Eq. 5.5) [201. 

Among the transition-metal catalysts that have been used, only those of Pd(II) are productive with diazomethane, which may be the result in cyclopropanation reactions [7,9,21] of a mechanism whereby the Pd-coordinated alkene undergoes electrophilic addition to diazomethane rather than by a metal carbene transformation in any case, asymmetric induction does not occur by using Pd(II) complexes of chiral bis-oxazolines [22],... 

Other reactions for which a discussion of their structure-reactivity behavior in terms of the PNS has provided valuable insights include nucleophilic addition and substitution reactions on electrophilic alkenes, vinylic compounds, and Fischer carbene complexes reactions involving carbocations and some radical reactions. 

We have already established that the carbene carbon is an electrophilic center and, hence, it should be very easily attacked by nucleophiles. In most reactions we believe that the first reaction step probably involves attachment of a nucleophile to the carbene carbon. In some cases, for instance with several phosphines (49) and tertiary amines (50), such addition products are isolable analytically pure under certain conditions (1 in Fig. 3). For the second step there exists the possibility that the nucleophilic agent may substitute a carbon monoxide in the complex with preservation of the carbene ligand (2 in Fig. 3). One can also very formally think of the carbene complex as an ester type of system [X=C(R )OR with X = M(CO)j instead of X = 0], because the oxygen atom as well as the metal atom in the M (CO) 6 residue are each missing 2 electrons for attainment of an inert gas configuration. So, it is not surprising that the... 

A select number of transition metal compounds are effective as catalysts for carbenoid reactions of diazo compounds (1-3). Their catalytic activity depends on coordination unsaturation at their metal center which allows them to react as electrophiles with diazo compounds. Electrophilic addition to diazo compounds, which is the rate limiting step, causes the loss of dinitrogen and production of a metal stabilized carbene. Transfer of the electrophilic carbene to an electron rich substrate (S ) in a subsequent fast step completes the catalytic cycle (Scheme I). Lewis bases (B ) such as nitriles compete with the diazo compound for the coordinatively unsaturated metal center and are effective inhibitors of catalytic activity. Although carbene complexes with catalytically active transition metal compounds have not been observed as yet, sufficient indirect evidence from reactivity and selectivity correlations with stable metal carbenes (4,5) exist to justify their involvement in catalytic transformations. 

Deviating from the route via nucleophilic attack of the carbanion at the carbon atom of a CO ligand and then reaction of the acylmetallate with an electrophile are those methods which involve (a) addition of the carbanion to the carbon atom of a carbyne ligand, (b) displacement of halides from transition-metal carbonyl halides by cyclohepta-trienyllithium, or derivatives thereof, followed by hydride abstraction or (c) substitution of a coordinated solvent from a metal-carbonyl complex (see also reaction of LiR with carbene complexes). 

Mechanistic studies of rhodium porphyrins as cyclopropanation catalysts have resulted in the spectroscopic identification of several potential intermediates in the reaction of ethyl diazoacetate with olefins, including a diazoniumfethoxy-carbonyl)methyl-rhodium complex formed by electrophilic addition of the rhodium center to the a-C atom of ethyl diazoacetate [29]. It is not known if analogous intermediates are also formed in analogous reactions of copper catalysts. However, the initial part of the catalytic cycle leading to the metal carbene intermediate is not of primary concern for the enantioselective reactions described herein. It is the second part, the reaction of the metal-carbene complex with the substrate, that is the enantioselective step. 

These results may be understood in the context of soft-hard acid-base theory.As mentioned earlier, the Fischer carbene complexes can be regarded as soft electrophiles, especially the alkylthio complexes. Hence, the adducts 99 formed by the reaction of 98b with a thiolate ion nucleophile enjoy enhanced stability due to the symbiotic effect of adding a soft nucleophile. This stabilization apparently reduces the need for additional stabilization by the phenyl substituent, which translates to a reduced p(Ki) value. 

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