Carbene Fischer carbenes

Cr(CO)3-coordinated hydroquinone from vinylic alkoxy pentacarbonyl chromium carbene (Fischer carbene) complex and alkynes. 

Transition metal carbene complexes can be divided into two classes electrophilic carbenes (Fischer carbene [69-71], Casey carbene [72,73]) and nucleophilic carbenes (Osborn carbene [74,75], Schrock carbene [76-79]) ... 

Fischer carbene Fischer carbene Casey carbene... 

Conventionally, carbene complexes are grouped into two classes Fischer [2] and Schrock [3] carbenes. Fischer carbenes may be identified by their 7r-donor substituents on the carbene carbon and having 7r-acceptor ligands bonded to a low-oxidation state, late-transition metal. These ligands may be thought of as singlet carbenes that donate a... 

A key driver for the development of the DBR has been the increased availability of the requisite chromium carbene. Fischer carbenes undergo a wide variety of useful reactions and a significant effort has been devoted to their synthesis. These carbenes undergo many of the same reactions as esters. The a-hydrogens in 13 are quite acidic, with a pKa of approximately 8, that allows for application of the Aldol condensation to form the vinyl-substituted carbene 14. Of course, alkynes insert into these carbenes to form new vinyl substituted carbenes 15. However, the absence of a heteroatom on the carbene center makes these poor substrates for the DBR. The classical route to Fischer carbenes is the Fischer route addition of an organolithium to hexacarbonyl chromium and alkylation with a hard electrophile. Hoye has also shown that alkyl iodides under phase-transfer conditions can be used to alkylate the lithium alkoxide. Thus reaction of vinyl lithium 16 provides the carbene 17 in 53% over two steps. 

Many transition metals can form carbene complexes, often generated indirectly due to the instability of the corresponding carbene. While some of these complexes are reactive and unstable intermediates, many are stable and some are even commercially available. Carbene complexes are divided into two types Fischer and Schrock carbenes. Fischer carbenes, such as chromium complex 8.6 (Figure 8.1), contain metals from groups VI to VII, have rr-acceptor ligands, especially carbon monoxide, and are electrophilic. A donor atom on the carbene carbon stabilizes the carbene. Schrock carbenes, such as tantalum complex 8.7, involve early transition metals, do not have rr-acceptor ligands and are nucleophilic. 

The remaining classes oF monohapto organic ligands listed in Table 19.2 are carbene (=CR2), carbyne (=CR), and carbido (C). Stable carbene complexes were first reported in 1964 by E. O. Fischer and A, Maasbol. Initially they OMe... 

Fischer-type carbene complexes in the synthesis of furan, pyrrole, 5//-furanone, and 5//-pyrrolone derivatives 98YGK413. 

Chromium carbene complexes like 13, which are called Fischer carbene complexes, can conveniently be prepared from chromium hexacarbonyl 11 and an organolithium compound 12, followed by an O-alkylation step ... 

The 13C-NMR spectra of 4-7, 9-11 show a close similarity to the spectral data of analogous carbene complexes. The shift differences between the metal carbonyls of the silylene complexes and the related carbon compounds are only small. These results underline the close analogy between the silicon compounds 4-7, 9-11 and Fischer carbene complexes. This view is also supported by the IR spectral data. On the basis of an analysis of the force constants of the vco stretching vibration,... 

Carbenes - molecules with a neutral dicoordinate carbon atom - play an important role in all fields of chemistry today. They were introduced to organic chemists by Doering and Hoffmann in the 1950s [1] and to organometallic chemists by Fischer and Maasbol about 10 years later [2,3]. But it took another 25 years until the first carbenes could be isolated [4-8] examples are given in Scheme 1. 

The surprising stability of N-heterocyclic carbenes was of interest to organometallic chemists who started to explore the metal complexes of these new ligands. The first examples of this class had been synthesized as early as 1968 by Wanzlick [9] and Ofele [10], only 4 years after the first Fischer-type carbene complex was synthesized [2,3] and 6 years before the first report of a Schrock-type carbene complex [11]. Once the N-heterocyclic ligands are attached to a metal they show a completely different reaction pattern compared to the electrophilic Fischer- and nucleophilic Schrock-type carbene complexes. 

Scheme 4 Schrock-type and Fischer-type carbene complexes...

Scheme 5 Synthesis of the first Fischer-type carbene complex...

Fischer-type carbene complexes, generally characterized by the formula (CO)5M=C(X)R (M=Cr, Mo, W X=7r-donor substitutent, R=alkyl, aryl or unsaturated alkenyl and alkynyl), have been known now for about 40 years. They have been widely used in synthetic reactions [37,51-58] and show a very good reactivity especially in cycloaddition reactions [59-64]. As described above, Fischer-type carbene complexes are characterized by a formal metal-carbon double bond to a low-valent transition metal which is usually stabilized by 7r-acceptor substituents such as CO, PPh3 or Cp. The electronic structure of the metal-carbene bond is of great interest because it determines the reactivity of the complex [65-68]. Several theoretical studies have addressed this problem by means of semiempirical [69-73], Hartree-Fock (HF) [74-79] and post-HF [80-83] calculations and lately also by density functional theory (DFT) calculations [67, 84-94]. Often these studies also compared Fischer-type and... 

The kinetic and thermodynamic properties of Fischer-type carbene complexes have also been addressed by Bernasconi, who relates the strength of the 7r-donor substituent to the thermodynamic acidity [95-101] and the kinetics and mechanism of hydrolysis and reversible cyclization to differences in the ligand X [96,102]. 

A recent study by Frenking [84] investigated in great detail the influence of the carbene substitutents X and R at a pentacarbonyl-chromium Fischer-type complex. The electronic characteristics of these substituents control the reac-... 

Fig. 1 A,B Dominant orbital interactions in Fischer-type carbene complexes (A) and Schrock-type carbene complexes (B)...

A decade after Fischer s synthesis of [(CO)5W=C(CH3)(OCH3)] the first example of another class of transition metal carbene complexes was introduced by Schrock, which subsequently have been named after him. His synthesis of [((CH3)3CCH2)3Ta=CHC(CH3)3] [11] was described above and unlike the Fischer-type carbenes it did not have a stabilizing substituent at the carbene ligand, which leads to a completely different behaviour of these complexes compared to the Fischer-type complexes. While the reactions of Fischer-type carbenes can be described as electrophilic, Schrock-type carbene complexes (or transition metal alkylidenes) show nucleophilicity. Also the oxidation state of the metal is generally different, as Schrock-type carbene complexes usually consist of a transition metal in a high oxidation state. 

From Alkyl-Substituted Fischer Carbene Complexes. 23... 

Reaction of ayfi-Unsaturated Fischer Carbene Complexes with Alkenes,... 

Keywords Fischer carbenes Template synthesis Cocyclization Cycloaddition Cyclopentadienes Cyclopentenones Domino reactions... 

Synthesis of a,/MJnsatu rated Fischer Carbene Complexes... 

Scheme 1 Synthesis of a,/ -unsaturated Fischer carbene complexes 3 from (pentacarbonyl)-metallaacylates 2 [12-15]...

Due to the high a-C,H acidity in the alkoxyethylidene complexes 6 (e.g.,piCa=8 (R=Me)) [ 16], transformations via an enolate analog are possible and have been used to introduce additional functionality into the carbene side chain to access various Fischer carbene complexes [3]. The a,/J-unsaturated complex 8 could be obtained from 6 (R=Et) by an aldol-type condensation with benzaldehyde 7 in the presence of triethylamine and trimethylsilyl chloride (Scheme 2) [17]. This reaction proceeds completely diastereoselectively to yield only the trans-isomer. Analogously, binuclear complexes have been prepared from 6 and 1,3-and 1,4-phthaldialdehyde in good yields [17]. This type of condensation has... 

The possibility of being involved in olefin metathesis is one of the most important properties of Fischer carbene complexes. [2+2] Cycloaddition between the electron-rich alkene 11 and the carbene complex 12 leads to the intermediate metallacyclobutane 13, which undergoes [2+2] cycloreversion to give a new carbene complex 15 and a new alkene 14 [19]. The (methoxy)phenylcar-benetungsten complex is less reactive in this mode than the corresponding chromium and molybdenum analogs (Scheme 3). 

This reaction mode of alkynylcarbene complexes of type 23 undoubtedly provides the most convenient access to /J-amino-substituted a,/J-unsaturated Fischer carbene complexes 27 (X=NH2, NHR2, NR2). Fischer et al. reported the very first such addition of an amine to an alkynylcarbene complex of type 23 and observed a temperature-dependent competition between 1,4- and 1,2-addition [12]. In a later systematic study, de Meijere et al. found that in addition to the 1,4-addition products 30,1,2-addition-elimination (formal substitution)... 

Diamino-substituted complexes of type 37 were first obtained by Fischer et al. [12] in two steps via the 1,2-addition-elimination product 34 from di-methylamine and 35 (Scheme 6). The (3-aminoallenylidene)chromium complexes 36, which can be prepared either from 33 [47,48] or directly from 35 [33], can also be transformed to l,3-bis(dialkylamino)-substituted complexes of type 37 (e.g., R2=z Pr) by treatment with dimethylamine in excellent yields [33]. Although the complex 37 is accessible by further reaction of the complex 34 with dimethylamine, and 34 itself stems from the reaction of 35 with dimethylamine, the direct transformation of 33 to 37 could not be achieved [12]. In spite of this, heterocyclic carbene complexes with two nitrogens were obtained by reactions of alkynylcarbene complexes 35 with hydrazine [49] and 1,3-diamines [50]. 

Cocydizations of a,/MJnsaturatecl Fischer Carbene Complexes with Alkynes... 

Recently, Aumann et al. reported that rhodium catalysts enhance the reactivity of 3-dialkylamino-substituted Fischer carbene complexes 72 to undergo insertion with enynes 73 and subsequent formation of 4-alkenyl-substituted 5-dialkylamino-2-ethoxycyclopentadienes 75 via the transmetallated carbene intermediate 74 (Scheme 15, Table 2) [73]. It is not obvious whether this transformation is also applicable to complexes of type 72 with substituents other than phenyl in the 3-position. One alkyne 73, with a methoxymethyl group instead of the alkenyl or phenyl, i.e., propargyl methyl ether, was also successfully applied [73]. 

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