Copper carbonyl clusters

The dominant role of copper catalysts has been challenged by the introduction of powerful group VIII metal catalysts. From a systematic screening, palladium(II) and rhodium(II) derivatives, especially the respective carboxylates62)63)64-, have emerged as catalysts of choice. In addition, rhodium and ruthenium carbonyl clusters, Rh COJjg 65> and Ru3(CO)12 e6), seem to work well. Tables 3 and 4 present a comparison of the efficiency of different catalysts in cyclopropanation reactions with ethyl diazoacetate under standardized conditions. 

Conjugate reduction.1 This stable copper(I) hydride cluster can effect conjugate hydride addition to a,p-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, with apparent utilization of all six hydride equivalents per cluster. No 1,2-reduction of carbonyl groups or reduction of isolated double bonds is observed. Undesirable side reactions such as aldol condensation can be suppressed by addition of water. Reactions in the presence of chlorotrimethylsilane result in silyl enol ethers. The reduction is stereoselective, resulting in hydride delivery to the less-hindered face of the substrate. 

The central feature of the mechanism is the 3-cuprio(III) enolate Cpop, of an open, dimeric nature, as shown by comparison of theory with experimentation involving NMR and KIEs [80, 81]. This species serves as the direct precursor to the product (Scheme 10.5, top box). In this critical CPop complex, copper/olefin (soft/soft) and a lithium/carbonyl (hard/hard) interactions are present. The open complex may be formed directly, by way of an open cluster (bottom left of Scheme 10.5), or by complexation of a closed cluster with the enone (CPcl). Experiments have shown that the enone/lithium complex (top left of Scheme 10.11) is a deadend species [60, 74]. 

Shephard, D. S., Maschmeyer, T., Sankar, G., Thomas, J. M., Ozkaya, D., Johnson, B. F. G., Raja, R., Oldroyd, R. D. and Bell, R. G. Preparation, characterization and performance of encapsulated copper-ruthenium bimetallic catalysts derived from molecular cluster carbonyl precursors, Chem. Eur. J., 1998, 4, 1214-1224. 

Acetic acid and ethyl acetate can dissociate on copper through cleavage of the C-X bond adjacent to the carbonyl group, where Xrepresents either hydroxyl or alkoxy. The chemical behavior of supported copper was simulated by using a 13-atom copper cluster resembling an icosahedron (75). All the surface atoms in this cluster have the same coordination number of six (Fig. 16). Quantum chemical calculations within the cluster approximation depend on the number of surface and bulk atoms incorporated in the model therefore, results of these calculations should be used only to deduce trends in bonding and reactivity for various species adsorbed on copper. 

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