Cobalt complexes, carbene furans from

O Connor proposed a mechanism involving deinsertion of carbon monoxide from the vinylketene complex 106 to form the new cobaltacyclobutene 109. The cobalt may then undergo a 1,3-shift to the carbonyl of the ester group to create the oxycobaltacycle 110, before deinsertion of the cobalt moiety forms the furan 108. Alternatively, 109 may rearrange to the vinyl-carbene 111, which then undergoes ester-carbonyl attack on the carbene carbon to form the zwitterionic species 112, which finally aromatizes to yield the furan 108. Notice that this latter postulate is identical to the final steps of the mechanism formulated by Wulff (see Section V,B) for the reaction between a cobalt carbene and an alkyne, in which a cobaltacyclobutene is a key intermediate.51... 

The high selectivity of the reaction of cobalt-carbene complexes with alkynes for furan products was taken advantage of in the synthesis of bovolide, a natural flavor constituent of butter. The carbene complex (230) was prepared in two steps from n-pentanal and was treated with 3 equiv. of 2-butyne. The crude reaction mixture, which presumably contained the furan (231), was treated directly with 3 equiv. of trimethylsilyl iodide to give bovolide in - 50% yield from carbene complex (230). 

Iron and cobalt carbene complexes are capable of much more selective furan synthesis. Reactions of cobalt methoxycarbenes with internal alkynes give good to excellent yields of 2-methoxyfurans and have been applied to a synthesis of a natural product, bovolide [75 b]. Both terminal and internal alkynes are viable substrates in the preparation of 2-aminofurans from iron (dimethylamino)carbenes [78], although the nature of the rearrangement of the heteroatom-containing substituent is also as yet unclear [Eq. (33)]. The inclusion of elevated carbon monoxide pressure can divert this reaction to the production of pyrones [75c, 79]. 

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