Chain Reactions alkene metathesis

In any chain reaction, apart from initiation steps, the termination steps are also important. In metathesis there are many possibilities for termination reactions. Besides the reverse of the initiation step, the reaction between two carbene species is also a possibility (eq. (17)). The observation that, when using the Me4SnAVCl6 system, as well as methane traces of ethylene are also observed [26] is in agreement with this reaction. Further reactions which lead to loss of catalytic activity are (1) the destruction of the metallacyclobutane intermediate resulting in the formation of cyclopropanes or alkenes, and (2) the reaction of the metallacycle or metal carbene with impurities in the system or with the functional group in the case of a functionally substituted alkene (e. g., Wittig-type reactions of the metal carbene with carbonyl groups). 

Metallacyclic complexes play an important role as reactive intermediates in catalytic cycles initiated by homogeneous transition-metal complexes. Thus, metallacyclobutanes are discussed as intermediates in alkene metathesis, isomerization of strained cyclopropane compounds and many other reactions. On the other hand, numerous examples of isolable me-tallacyclobutane complexes have been reported. These can be formed by different routes such as carbon-carbon bond cleavage of cyclopropane compounds (A), cyclometallation via C — H bond cleavage (B), nucleophilic addition to allyl complexes (C), rearrangement of metallacyc-lopentanes (D) or transmetalation of 1,3-dimetallalated carbon chains (E). ... 

Another consequence of living polymerization systems is that they can be used to synthesize block copolymers. Under these conditions, once the initial quantity of monomer in a given reaction is consumed, the resultant polymer chains are terminated with metal carbene end groups that are still active for alkene metathesis. As long as these carbenes do not react rapidly with the acyclic alkenes in the polymer chain, addition of a second monomer will result in the synthesis of a block copolymer. This reaction is illustrated in equation (13) for the synthesis of a polymer that consists of block of x repeat units of monomer A followed by a block of y repeat units of monomer B. 

Alkene Metathesis over Metal Oxides. The olefin metathesis reaction was first reported in 1960 by Elevterio (297,298) and is an industrial route for breaking two carbon-carbon double bonds (Fig. 36). The purpose of this type of chemistry is to prepare chemically useful alkenes from less reactive starting materials. Specifically, metathesis is used to prepare internal alkenes or modify carbon chain length (Fig. 37). 

Nonetheless, ADMET is a versatile technique that allows the incorporation of a wide variety of functional groups into the resultant polymers. Scheme 1.9 shows the catalytic cycle of ADMET, controlled by the metathesis catalyst, which can be either ruthenium- [76, 77] or molybdenum-based [78, 79]. While the kinetics are controlled by the catalyst (there is no reaction in its absence), it still follows the kinetic picture described in Section 1.3.2. This is because the catalyst is removed from the chain end after each successful alkene metathesis reaction (i.e., coupling) and the olefin with which it subsequently reacts is statistically random. 

A similar type of cascade reaction has been carried out with cyclic alkenes bearing only one olefinic side chain to obtain substituted heterocycles via ruthenium-catalyzed ring closing-ring opening metathesis (RCM-ROM) reactions. The preparation of enantiomerically pure cis- or trans-a,a -disubstituted piperidines has been achieved in the same yield for the two diastereoisomers [35] (Scheme 17). This reaction has also been used as a key step for the synthesis of natural products [36-39]. 

When cyclic alkenes are utilized as starting materials the metathesis reaction will lead to long chain polymers and/or cyclic oligomers [103, 104, 107, 108]. If a strained cyclic alkene is employed the reaction is effectively irreversible. Industrially cyclooctene (polymer Vestenamer), 2-norbornene (polymer Norsorex), and dicyclopentadiene (polymer Telene, Metton, Pentam) are used as monomers. Upon polymerization cyclooctene and 2-norbornene yield straight chain polymers while dicyclopentadiene also allows cross-linking (Scheme 5.56). 

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