Carbene complexes with hydrogen halides

The reaction of acceptor-substituted carbene complexes with alcohols to yield ethers is a valuable alternative to other etherification reactions [1152,1209-1211], This reaction generally proceeds faster than cyclopropanation [1176], As in other transformations with electrophilic carbene complexes, the reaction conditions are mild and well-suited to base- or acid-sensitive substrates [1212], As an illustrative example, Experimental Procedure 4.2.4 describes the carbene-mediated etherification of a serine derivative. This type of substrate is very difficult to etherify under basic conditions (e.g. NaH, alkyl halide [1213]), because of an intramolecular hydrogen-bond between the nitrogen-bound hydrogen and the hydroxy group. Further, upon treatment with bases serine ethers readily eliminate alkoxide to give acrylates. With the aid of electrophilic carbene complexes, however, acceptable yields of 0-alkylated serine derivatives can be obtained. 

The second example shows that such a reaction need not always lead to an uncharged system. If, instead of thiocarbene complexes, amino-carbene complexes are treated with hydrogen halides, products of saltlike character are isolable (66). One finds the halogen at the metal and the hydrogen at the removed carbene ligand, and one obtains iminium halo-genopentacarbonylmetalates ... 

Alkenes and alkynes coordinate to transition metals and undergo a variety of reactions, and are very important substrates for transition metal-catalysed reactions. Their reactions with halides, cyclization via carbene complexes, hydrogenation, and oxidative reactions with Pd(II) are treated in Sections 3.2, 8.2, 10.1 and 11.1, respectively. The many other reactions of alkenes and alkynes as main reactants are treated in this chapter. 

Rh(TTP) reacts with alkyl halides, acyl halides, aroyl halides, and sulfonyl halides, but it shows no evidence of reaction with molecular hydrogen. These observations further emphasize the fact that Rh(TTP) is essentially a nucleophile and it therefore reacts with those reagents RX that can oxidatively add by nucleophilic attack (34). Rh(TTP) does not react with H2, and H2 seems always to add to (P complexes via a concerted mechanism (35). It appears that Rh(TTP) has very little diradical character, i.e. it is not a good analog of a carbene (35). It is possible that this unreactivity may be associated with the stereochemistry of chelation by the macrocyclic ligand. Earlier studies on the oxidative addition reactions of Rh(I) complex with a tetraaza macrocycle revealed that the Rh(I) had strong nucleophilic properties but the activation of molecular H2 was not reported (36, 37). This possibility is supported by reports that dialkyl sulfide complexes of rhodium chloride catalyze the hydrogenation of olefins (38). 

There has been a summary of computational and experimental studies of the use of palladium complexes with A -heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) in the asymmetric coupling of -hybridized carbon-hydrogen bonds with aryl halides. It has been shown that the electronic and catalytic properties of NHCs fused to porphyrins may be modified by varying the inner metal in the porphyrin. A DPT study of the use of palladium-NHC complexes in the asymmetric intramolecular a-arylation of 2-bromoaryl amides to give 3,3-disubstituted oxindoles (101) has been reported. The likely pathway involves insertion of the palladium into the arene-bromine bond to form a palladacycle which deprotonates to give an (9-enolate. Conversion into the C-enolate followed by reductive elimination gives the product. The intramolecular reaction of 0 a cyclopropane carbon-hydrogen bond in a 2-bromoanilide derivative has been used to form cyclopropyloxindoles, (102), in a palladium-catalysed, silver-mediated reaction. 

The MCR toward 2//-2-imidazolines (65) has found apphcation in the construction of A(-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) complexes (74). Alkylation of the sp Af-atom with an alkyl halide followed by abstraction of the proton at C2 with a strong base (NaH, KOtBu) resulted in the formation of the free carbene species, which could be trapped and isolated as the corresponding metal complexes (Ir or Rh) [160]. The corresponding Ru-complexes were shown to be active and selective catalysts for the transfer hydrogenaticm of furfural to furfurol using iPrOH as hydrogen source [161]. 

Carboxylic acid amide functionalised imidazolium salts can be reacted with group 10 halides directly in the presence of an inorganic base (e.g. K COj) to form homoleptic complexes (see Figure 4.41) [122]. Interestingly, the carbene units are cis to each other and not trans as would be expected (see Figures 4.30 and 4.38). The cis complexation is not aided by hydrogen bonding as the carboxylic acid amide functionality loses its proton upon complexation to nickel. 

AAHeterocyclic carbene-borane complexes have been shown to be useful as hydrogen sources through radical mechanisms, as Chu et al [85] determined after their initial work with the reduction of xanthates mentioned earlier. Also, substituted imidazol-2-ylidene and triazol-3-ylidenes have been employed in the reduction of dodecyl iodide to dodecane without the addition of any radical initiator. Furthermore, even in the presence of usually borane-reactive species, such as ketones or alkenes, the reduction of the alkyl halide is the only reaction observed. Later, however, Ueng et al foimd that alkyl halides with nearby... 

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