CO insertion into early transition metal alkyls

The behavior of early transition metal alkyls toward CO is somewhat different from that of late transition metal alkyls. Very little applications using early transition metal complexes for carbonylation processes have been reported in contrast to the abundant examples of applications of late transition metal complexes to carbonylation of organic substrates. However, fundamental studies on the chemistry of early transition metal alkyls toward CO insertion provide us with important information regarding the mechanisms of catalytic carbonylation processes. Thus we deal here with the chemistry of CO insertion into early transition metal alkyls and into late transition metal alkyls separately. 

2 CO insertion into early transition metal alkyls 

With the increase in the number of isolated examples of early transition metal alkyls, detailed fundamental studies on the CO insertion chemistry have also increased. The CO insertion chemistry into d-element and f-element metal alkyls has recently attracted considerable attention. 

---