Direct ligand addition, transition metal

While transition metal dithiocarbamate complexes can be prepared in a wide variety of ways, by far the most common is the direct ligand addition, which often, but not necessarily, results in loss of a coordinated anionic ligand, and sometimes a second neutral ligand also (Eq. 13). This route has few limitations and complexes of all the transition metals have been prepared using it. 

The field of transition metal-catalyzed hydroboration has developed enormously over the last 20 years and is now one of the most powerful techniques for the transformation of C=C and C=C bonds.1-3 While hydroboration is possible in the absence of a metal catalyst, some of the more common borane reagents attached to heteroatom groups (e.g., catecholborane or HBcat, (1)) react only very slowly at room temperature (Scheme 1) addition of a metal catalyst M] accelerates the reaction. In addition, the ability to manipulate [M] through the judicious choice of ligands (both achiral and chiral) allows the regio-, chemo-, and enantioselectivity to be directed. 

The addition of transition metal fragments ML (L = two-electron donor ligand) across formally unsaturated metal-metal or metal-carbon bonds is a well-developed synthetic route to heteronuclear clusters (1,2,11,12,27) and has received theoretical justification from Hoffmann s isolobal principle (46). The addition of a PtL2 fragment across an M=M double bond may be considered as analogous to the reaction of a carbene with an olefin, resulting in a cyclopropane. The use of isolobal analogies in the directed synthesis of heteronuclear clusters has been reviewed (11,12,27). 

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