Gem-boriozirconocenes

During the last ten years, the chemistry of 1,1-boriozirconocene complexes has been studied. Both hydrozirconation and hydroboration reactions are well established, and are widely applicable to a wide variety of vinyl and acetylene derivatives [1], Alkenylboranes and alkenylzirconium compounds can also be readily prepared. Therefore, hydrometalla-tion of the corresponding alkenyl metals should offer a convenient method for preparing gem-boriozirconocenes [24]. 

However, these compounds proved to be unstable and difficult to characterize. The authors reasoned that the source of the instability was likely to be the trialkylboron moiety. Boronates are more stable than trialkylboranes since the lone-pairs of electrons on an oxygen atom can donate to the empty orbital of a boron atom. The corresponding gem-boriozirconocenes should also be more stable. Thus, hydrozirconation of the alkenyl-... 

As representatives of this class of compounds, one hindered and one non-hindered gem-boriozirconocene alkene were prepared [54]. Hydrozirconation of a 1-alkynyldioxaborolane with Cp2Zr(H)Cl in either 1,4-dioxane or THF proceeded readily by a syn addition to give the essentially pure ( )-l,l-bis-metallic boriozirconocene 45 [12]. This bis-metallic complex 45 was also reacted with various electrophiles, thereby generating the alkenylboron derivatives 53—57 as shown in Scheme 7.17. 

The stereoselective synthesis of rac-chokols A (61) and G (62) from the same precursor gem-boriozirconocene 59 involves a conjugate addition to 2-methylcyclopentenone to give the common intermediate 60. The latter is then transformed through a series of reactions to provide the chokols in overall yields of 16% and 17%, respectively (Scheme 7.19) [131],... 

Gem boriozirconocene alkanes can be prepared by either hydrozirconation of alkenylboranes or hydroboration of... 

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