Carbenes, insertion into copper-carbon

Ito, Kawakami and Sawamura recently described the borylation of al-lylic carbonates by B2pin2, catalyzed by bis(phosphine)copper(I) alkox-ides. It was proposed that bis(phosphine)copper(I) boryl species formed by alkoxide/boryl a-bond metathesis are key intermediates in the catalytic cycle [231]. Making use of related N-heterocyclic carbene stabilized precursors, Sadighi and co-workers have very recently isolated the thermally labile copper boryl complex (IPr)CuBpin (11.1) together with the products of oxygen atom, styrene and aldehyde insertion into the Cu-B bond (11.2-11.5 Scheme 24) [232,233,237]. The structure of 11.1 in the solid state reveals an approximately linear Cu(I) coordination geometry [ZB-Cu-C 168.1(2)°] and a Cu-B distance [2.002(3) A] which is somewhat shorter than the sum of the expected covalent radii [2.05 A] [106]. Yet further evidence for the... 

Carbene complexes, generated by the reaction between metal salts and diazo compounds can insert into C-H bonds in a form of CH activation (see Chapter 3 for other CH activation reactions). While early reactions involved the use of copper salts as catalysts (Schemes 8.143 and 8.144), rhodium complexes are now more widely used. In molecules such as cyclohexane, there is no issue of regioselectivity, but this issue is critical for the use of the reaction in synthesis. Both steric and electronic factors influence selectivity. Carbon atoms where a build up of some positive charge can be stabilized are favoured. Hence, allylic positions and positions a- to a heteroatom such as oxygen or nitrogen, are favoured. The reaction at tertiary C-H bonds, rather than primary C-H bonds is also favoured for the same reason, but, in this case, are also disfavoured by steric effects. Reactivity and selectivity are also influenced by both the structure of the catalyst, and the... 

Although the first catalysts were copper-based, the insertion of metal-associated carbenes into carbon-hydrogen bonds has undergone a renaissance with the advent of rhodium(II) carboxylate catalysts [56]. Metal-catalyzed enan-tioselective C-H insertions of carbenes have not been studied in great detail. Most of the efficient enantioselective versions of this reaction involve chiral rhodium complexes and until recently, the use of chiral catalysts derived from metals other than copper and rhodium for the asymmetric C-H insertion of metal-associated carbenes are still unexplored. 

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