Hydroalumination metal promoters

In this chapter, recent advances in asymmetric hydrosilylations promoted by chiral transition-metal catalysts will be reviewed, which attained spectacular increase in enantioselectivity in the 1990s [1], After our previous review in the original Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis, which covered literature through the end of 1992 [2], various chiral Pn, Nn, and P-N type ligands have been developed extensively with great successes. In addition to common rhodium and palladium catalysts, other new chiral transition-metal catalysts, including Ti and Ru complexes, have emerged. This chapter also discusses catalytic hydrometallation reactions other than hydrosily-lation such as hydroboration and hydroalumination. 

Donor solvents appear to promote hydroaluminations with MAIR3H reagents, both through their solubilizing action on such salts and probably by solvating the metal cation and freeing thereby the alumi-nate anion for attack. Crown ethers would seem to be ideal for this role. 

In Section 3.11.1.4 it was pointed out that salts of certain transition metals, lanthanides and actinides promote the hydroalumination reaction. Since such metal salts are introduced into the reaction in their high oxidation states it can be assumed that the metal ions are rapidly reduced to a lower oxidation state and that this state is the active catalyst. For nickel(II) salts, Wilke has shown conclusively that the active agent is a nickel(0)-alkene complex. Analogously, for titanium(IV) salts, such as TiCU, Ti(OR>4 and Cp2TiCl2, it is most likely that a titanium(III) state is involved. The possible role of such metal centers in accelerating hydroalumination will be considered in the next section. 

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