Hydrometallation Routes

A variety of routes are available for the preparation of allylsilanes (/) with the simplest and most direct being the silylation of allyl-metal species. Other routes exemplified in this chapter include Wittig methodology, the use of silyl anions/anionoids in allylic substitution, and hydrometallation of... 

Diastereoselective reductive coupling of MVK and p-nitrobenzaldehyde performed under an atmosphere of elemental deuterium provides an aldol adduct incorporating a single deuterium atom at the former enone f>-pos-ition [69]. Deuterium incorporation at the a-carbon is not observed, excluding Morita-Baylis-Hillman pathways en route to product. Incorporation of a single deuterium atom suggests irreversible enone hydrometallation (Scheme 5). 

Asymmetric hydrometallation of ketones and imines with H-M (M = Si, B, Al) catalyzed by chiral transition-metal complexes followed by hydrolysis provides an effective route to optically active alcohols and amines, respectively. Asymmetric addition of metal hydrides to olefins provides an alternative and attractive route to optically active alcohols or halides via subsequent oxidation of the resulting metal-carbon bonds (Scheme 2.1). 

Addition reactions of three kinds of main group metal compounds, namely R—M X (carbometallation, when R are alkyl, alkenyl, aryl or allyl groups), H—M X (hydrometallation with metal hydrides) and R—M —M"—R (dimetallation with dimetal compounds) to alkenes and alkynes, are important synthetic routes to useful organometallic compounds. Some reactions proceed without a catalyst, but many are catalysed by transition metal complexes. 

Addition of hydride bonds of main group metals such as B—H, Mg—H, Al—H, Si—H and Sn—H to alkenes and alkynes to give 513 and 514 is called hydrometallation and is an important synthetic route to compounds of the main group metals. Further transformation of the addition product of alkenes 513 and alkynes 514 to 515,516 and 517 is possible. Addition of B—H, Mg—H, Al—H and Sn—H bonds proceeds without catalysis, but their hydrometallations are accelerated or proceed with higher stereoselectivity in the presence of transition metal catalysts. Hydrometallation with some hydrides proceeds only in the presence of transition metal catalysts. Hydrometallation starts by the oxidative addition of metal hydride to the transition metal to generate transition metal hydrides 510. Subsequent insertion of alkene or alkyne to the M—H bonds gives 511 or 512. The final step is reductive elimination. Only catalysed hydrometallations are treated in this section. 

Alkenylzirconium compounds 34 obtained by the hydrometallation of alkynes were transformed to 1-alkenylboron compounds via transmetallation with B-halo-9-BBN or B-chlorocatecholborane62,63 (Scheme 5). Mercuration followed by transmetallation to BH3 was advantageous over the lithiation route in the synthesis of indole-3-boronic acid 35.64... 

The hydrometallation of alkynes is one of the most widely used routes to vinyl organometallics,131 which in turn are valuable in the construction of molecular structures containing carbon-carbon double bonds of defined stereochemistry. 

---