Carbon-metal bond formation vinyl halide reactions

The transition metal catalyzed carbon-carbon bond formation between organomagnesium reagents and aryl (vinyl) halides has been one of the pioneering entries into cross-coupling chemistry. The reaction has been widely utilized since than in azine chemistry,22 with the limitation that the functional group tolerance of Grignard reagents is only moderate. Here only some of the more recent developments will be mentioned. 

The reaction sequence in the vinylation of aromatic halides and vinyl halides, i.e. the Heck reaction, is oxidative addition of the alkyl halide to a zerovalent palladium complex, then insertion of an alkene and completed by /3-hydride elimination and HX elimination. Initially though, C-H activation of a C-H alkene bond had also been taken into consideration. Although the Heck reaction reduces the formation of salt by-products by half compared with cross-coupling reactions, salts are still formed in stoichiometric amounts. Further reduction of salt production by a proper choice of aryl precursors has been reported (Chapter III.2.1) [1]. In these examples aromatic carboxylic anhydrides were used instead of halides and the co-produced acid can be recycled and one molecule of carbon monoxide is sacrificed. Catalytic activation of aromatic C-H bonds and subsequent insertion of alkenes leads to new C-C bond formation without production of halide salt byproducts, as shown in Scheme 1. When the hydroarylation reaction is performed with alkynes one obtains arylalkenes, the products of the Heck reaction, which now are synthesized without the co-production of salts. No reoxidation of the metal is required, because palladium(II) is regenerated. 

Among common carbon-carbon bond formation reactions involving carbanionic species, the nucleophilic substitution of alkyl halides with active methylene compounds in the presence of a base, e. g., malonic and acetoacetic ester syntheses, is one of the most well documented important methods in organic synthesis. Ketone enolates and protected ones such as vinyl silyl ethers are also versatile nucleophiles for the reaction with various electrophiles including alkyl halides. On the other hand, for the reaction of aryl halides with such nucleophiles to proceed, photostimulation or addition of transition metal catalysts or promoters is usually required, unless the halides are activated by strong electron-withdrawing substituents [7]. Of the metal species, palladium has proved to be especially useful, while copper may also be used in some reactions [81. Thus, aryl halides can react with a variety of substrates having acidic C-H bonds under palladium catalysis. 

The 1,2-insertion of alkenes into transition metal-carbon o-bond leads to C-C bond formation under mild conditions, as described in Chapter 6. This reaction is considered to be a crucial step in the coordination polymerization and carbometalation of alkenes catalyzed by transition metal complexes. A common and important carbometalation is the Heck-type arylation or vinylation of alkene catalyzed by Pd complexes [118], The arylation of alkene, most typically, involves the formation of arylpalladium species and insertion of alkene into the Pd-aryl bond as shown in Scheme 5.20. The arylpalladium species is formed by the oxidative addition of aryl halides to Pd(0) complexes or the transmetalation of aryl compounds of main group metals with Pd(II) complexes. Insertion of alkene into the Pd-aryl bond produces 2-arylalkylpalladium species whose y6-hydrogen elimination leads to the arylalkene. Oxidative chlorination of the 2-arylalkylpalladium intermediate forms chloroalkanes as the product. 

Heck vinylation of aryl halides is one of the most widely used methods for carbon-carbon bond formation. Bhanage et al. described a method for a Heck reaction of iodobenzene in a biphasic system of ethylene glycol/toluene. Several metal-TPPTS complexes were tested [24]. 

Due to sluggish reactivity of aryl and vinyl halides in nucleophiUc substitution reactions, the formation of sulfur-carbon(sp ) bonds is typically carried out using transition metal catalysis [22-27]. While the field is dominated by the use of palladium, copper, and nickel catalysts, considerable advances have been made using more abundant metal catalysts such as iron. Additionally, a number of transition metal-fiee approaches have been developed for the formation of sulfur-carbon(sp ) bonds. The following sections will highlight representative examples of C—S bond forming reactions. 

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