Carbenes fragmentation

One-electron oxidation of the vinylidene complex transforms it from an Fe=C axially symmetric Fe(ll) carbene to an Fe(lll) complex where the vinylidene carbon bridges between iron and a pyrrole nitrogen. Cobalt and nickel porphyrin carbene complexes adopt this latter structure, with the carbene fragment formally inserted into the metal-nitrogen bond. The difference between the two types of metalloporphyrin carbene, and the conversion of one type to the other by oxidation in the case of iron, has been considered in a theoretical study. The comparison is especially interesting for the iron(ll) and cobalt(lll) carbene complexes Fe(Por)CR2 and Co(Por)(CR2) which both contain metal centers yet adopt... 

Rh(Por)l (Por = OEP. TPP, TMP) also acts as a catalyst for the insertion of carbene fragments into the O—H bonds of alcohols, again using ethyl diazoacetate as the carbene source. A rhodium porphyrin carbene intermediate was proposed in the reaction, which is more effective for primary than secondary or tertiary alcohols, and with the bulky TMP ligand providing the most selectivity. ... 

When the rr-interaction between metal and carbene fragments is increased, the metal-carbon 2p. 77 orbital is pushed up higher in energy and is no longer significantly localized on Ca. In complexes of this type, the LUMO is an orbital not associated with the metal-carbon bond (10). 

Some examples of carbene dimer formation resulting from diazoalkane decomposition on transition-metal surfaces have been reported. Diazomethane is decomposed to give ethylene and N2 upon passage over a C0O/M0O3 catalyst as well as on Ni, Pd, Fe, Co, Ru and Cu surfaces 367). Similarly, 2-diazopropane is readily decomposed on Raney nickel 368). At room temperature, propene and N2 were the only detectable products, but above 50 °C, the carbene dimer 2,3-dimethyl-2-butene started to appear which reached its maximum yield at 100 °C, where approximately 40 % of the carbene fragments dimerized. It is assumed 367,368), that surface carbenes are formed as intermediates from both diazomethane and 2-diazopropane which either dimerize or desorb by migration of a P-hydrogren, if available (Scheme 40). 

The existence of such a growth step is consistent with the high proportion of C2 products found in the Ir4(CO)12/NaCl-2AlCl3 system (59). Furthermore, in systems where dimerization is less favored, hydrogenation of the primary carbene fragment could explain the considerable amounts of methane formed in many heterogeneous Fischer-Tropsch systems. 

There are no mechanistic details known from intermediates of copper, like we have seen in the studies on metathesis, where both metal alkylidene complexes and metallacyclobutanes that are active catalysts have been isolated and characterised. The copper catalyst must fulfil two roles, first it must decompose the diazo compound in the carbene and dinitrogen and secondly it must transfer the carbene fragment to an alkene. Copper carbene species, if involved, must be rather unstable, but yet in view of the enantioselective effect of the ligands on copper, clearly the carbene fragment must be coordinated to copper. It is generally believed that the copper carbene complex is rather a copper carbenoid complex, as the highly reactive species has reactivities very similar to free carbenes. It has not the character of a metal-alkylidene complex that we have encountered on the left-hand-side of the periodic table in metathesis (Chapter 16). Carbene-copper species have been observed in situ (in a neutral copper species containing an iminophosphanamide as the anion), but they are still very rare [9],... 

On the other hand, complexes with weak Jt interaction between the metal and the carbene will have an energetically low-lying K orbital. In addition to this, electron-transfer from the metal to C will be less efficient, thus leading to a more positively charged carbene fragment. Hence, carbene complexes with a large energy gap and poor orbital overlap between the metal d orbital and the carbene 2 p orbital will be prone to react with nucleophiles. 

Transition metal complexes which react with diazoalkanes to yield carbene complexes can be catalysts for diazodecomposition (see Section 4.1). In addition to the requirements mentioned above (free coordination site, electrophi-licity), transition metal complexes can catalyze the decomposition of diazoalkanes if the corresponding carbene complexes are capable of transferring the carbene fragment to a substrate with simultaneous regeneration of the original complex. Metal carbonyls of chromium, iron, cobalt, nickel, molybdenum, and tungsten all catalyze the decomposition of diazomethane [493]. Other related catalysts are (CO)5W=C(OMe)Ph [509], [Cp(CO)2Fe(THF)][BF4] [510,511], and (CO)5Cr(COD) [52,512]. These compounds are sufficiently electrophilic to catalyze the decomposition of weakly nucleophilic, acceptor-substituted diazoalkanes. 

Thermal generation of dimethylsilylene in the presence of carbonyl compounds leads to the addition of the silylene to the C=0 bond with the formation of oxasilirane (e.g. 62 and 65), followed by rearrangement40. Formation of tetraphenylethylene from benzophenone was attributed to carbenic fragmentation of the oxasilirane (62), whereas aliphatic ketones... 

For the OVB and VBSCF theory levels it remains to define the set of structures that comprise the wave function. If the two variably occupied orbitals on each carbene fragment [CF1(A) and XH(A)] are labeled 11, 12, rl and r2 (1 = left and r = right), then Table 1 gives the orbital distribution of all the structures that can be composed by distributing 4 electrons among the 4 orbitals. These structures can be classified as covalent, with two electrons on each carbene irrespective of spin coupling, and charge transfer (CT) in either the 1 - r or r —> 1 directions with an uneven number of electrons on each carbene... 

Finally, an additional synthesis of recent times (1971) comes from Lappert and his group (48). They treated an electron-rich olefinic system, such as 1, l, 3,3 -tetraphenyl-2,2 -biimidazolidinylidene, with a suitable complex compound. In this manner, they attained cleavage of the C=C double bond and attachment of the carbene fragment to the metal ... 

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