Insertion reactions studies

In an effort to overcome the limitations of electrochemical and photoelectrochemical cathodic reduction of carbon dioxide, and to draw upon insights of hydrogen insertion reactions studied in homogeneous... 

To date most of the nitriles studied have been simple alkyl or aromatic derivatives with little other functionality. We recently attempted to extend the reaction to iV-protected a-aminonitriles, derived by dehydration of a-aminoacid amides (Path A, Scheme 25), but this proved unsatisfactory, and therefore we investigated an alternative diazocarbonyl based route in which the order of steps was reversed, i.e. a rhodium catalysed N-H insertion reaction on the amide followed by cyclodehydration to the oxazole (Path B, Scheme 25). 

The subjects of structure and bonding in metal isocyanide complexes have been discussed before 90, 156) and will not be treated extensively here. A brief discussion of this subject is presented in Section II of course, special emphasis is given to the more recent information which has appeared. Several areas of current study in the field of transition metal-isocyanide complexes have become particularly important and are discussed in this review in Section III. These include the additions of protonic compounds to coordinated isocyanides, probably the subject most actively being studied at this time insertion reactions into metal-carbon bonded species nucleophilic reactions with metal isocyanide complexes and the metal-catalyzed a-addition reactions. Concurrent with these new developments, there has been a general expansion of descriptive chemistry of isocyanide-metal complexes, and further study of the physical properties of selected species. These developments are summarized in Section IV. 

The work on insertion reactions of isocyanides was initiated by Yamamoto et ah, and described in a communication in 1968 followed by a full paper a year later (164). This study described the reaction of C5H5Ni(PPh3)CH3 with several isocyanides, from which the products C5HjNi(CNR)- C(=NR)CH3 were isolated [Eq. (2)]. 

No comparative kinetic study has been made on the same alkyl carbonyl system for two members of a given transition metal triad. Qualitative data show that the middle member is more reactive than the heaviest one e.g., CpMo(CO)jR > CpW(CO)jR (Section VI,B), Rh(III) > Ir(III) (Section VI,E), and Pd(II) > Pt(II) (Section VI,F). However, the extreme unreactivity of CpW(CO)jR and a considerable difference in lability between most alkyls of Rh(III) and Ir(III), as well as those of Pd(II) and Pt(II), have prevented detailed investigations. Surprisingly, no kinetic studies have been conducted on insertion reactions of RRe(CO)5, which would seem readily amenable to such investigations. 

Infrared Intensities of Metal Carbonyl Stretching Vibrations, 10, 199 Infrared and Raman Studies of w-Complexes, 1, 239 Insertion Reactions of Compounds of Metals and Metalloids, 5, 225 Insertion Reactions of Transition Metal-Carbon o-Bonded Compounds I Carbon Monoxide Insertion, 11, 88... 

This key paper was followed by a flurry of activity in this area, spanning several years." " "" A variety of workers reported attempts to deconvolute the temperature dependence of carbene singlet/triplet equilibria and relative reactivities from the influence of solid matrices. Invariably, in low-temperature solids, H-abstraction reactions were found to predominate over other processes. Somewhat similar results were obtained in studies of the temperature and phase dependency of the selectivity of C-H insertion reactions in alkanes. While, for example, primary versus tertiary C-H abstraction became increasingly selective as the temperature was lowered in solution, the reactions became dramatically less selective in the solid phase as temperatures were lowered further. Similar work of Tomioka and co-workers explored variations of OH (singlet reaction) versus C-H (triplet reaction) carbene insertions with alcohols as a function of temperature and medium. Numerous attempts were made in these reports to explain the results based on increases in triplet carbene population... 

The concept of electrochemical intercalation/insertion of guest ions into the host material is further used in connection with redox processes in electronically conductive polymers (polyacetylene, polypyrrole, etc., see below). The product of the electrochemical insertion reaction should also be an electrical conductor. The latter condition is sometimes by-passed, in systems where the non-conducting host material (e.g. fluorographite) is finely mixed with a conductive binder. All the mentioned host materials (graphite, oxides, sulphides, polymers, fluorographite) are studied as prospective cathodic materials for Li batteries. 

The experimental results obtained in this work should be able to provide an excellent test ground for theoretical studies of this benchmark insertion reaction. 

Like other metal reactions studied previously in our laboratory, H2 elimination is initiated by insertion into one of the C-H bonds forming HMC3H5. The reaction rate constant for Y + cyclopropane was found to be very small at room temperature, 0.7 x 10 12 cm3 s 1, and it was suggested that the reaction most likely involved termolecular stabilization of C-H or C-C insertion complexes, rather than molecular elimination.22 By analogy with other systems studied, the dynamically most favorable route to H2 loss in this case is likely via H atom migration to the Y-H moiety, with concerted... 

It might be expected that the aromatic character of (14) would lend unique characteristics to its chemistry. Studies of the olefin addition and C—H insertion reactions of the carbene, however, indicate that it is poorly stabilized and highly reactive.<26)... 

Neutral-neutral reactions are also involved in the synthesis of hydrocarbons, but here the evidence is less clear since, even for those systems studied in the laboratory, reaction products are rarely available. Unlike reactions involving O atoms, those involving C atoms and unsaturated hydrocarbons appear to be rapid, at least at room temperature and above.46,47 If the products of these reactions are analogous to ion-molecule insertion reactions, they can lead to molecular synthesis for example ... 

Products in several isomeric forms can occur in systems with fewer atoms than considered above the association reaction between C3H+ and H2 to produce both cyclic and noncyclic C3H3 is a case in point, although the branching ratio in this instance seems to be noncontroversial.30 The problem of whether product hydrocarbon ions are cyclic or noncyclic extends to other classes of ion-molecule reactions such as condensation and carbon insertion reactions, where studies of product reactivity have only been undertaken in a few instances. In general, cyclic ion products are less reactive than their noncyclic counterparts. For systems with a... 

A detailed study of the mechanism of the insertion reaction of monomer between the metal-carbon bond requires quantitative information on the kinetics of the process. For this information to be meaningful, studies should be carried out on a homogeneous system. Whereas olefins and compounds such as Zr(benzyl)4 and Cr(2-Me-allyl)3, etc. are very soluble in hydrocarbon solvents, the polymers formed are crystalline and therefore insoluble below the melting temperature of the polyolefine formed. It is therefore not possible to use olefins for kinetic studies. Two completely homogeneous systems have been identified that can be used to study the polymerization quantitatively. These are the polymerization of styrene by Zr(benzyl)4 in toluene (16, 25) and the polymerization of methyl methacrylate by Cr(allyl)3 and Cr(2-Me-allyl)3 (12)- The latter system is unusual since esters normally react with transition metal allyl compounds (10) but a-methyl esters such as methyl methacrylate do not (p. 270) and the only product of reaction is polymethylmethacrylate. Also it has been shown with both systems that polymerization occurs without a change in the oxidation state of the metal. 

The main path of the palladium-catalyzed reaction of butadiene is the dimerization. However, the trimerization to form /j-1, 3,6,10-dodeca-tetraene takes place with certain palladium complexes in the absence of a phosphine ligand. Medema and van Helden observed, while studying the insertion reaction of butadiene to 7r-allylpalladium chloride and acetate (32, 37), that the reaction of butadiene in benzene solution at 50°C using 7r-allylpalladium acetate as a catalyst yielded w-1,3,6,10-dodecatetraene (27) with a selectivity of 79% at a conversion of 30% based on butadiene in 22 hours. 

The rate also varies with butadiene concentration. However, the order of the rate dependence on butadiene concentration is temperature-de-pendent, i.e., a fractional order (0.34) at 30°C and first-order at 50°C (Tables II and III). Cramer s (4, 7) explanation for this temperature effect on the kinetics is that, at 50°C, the insertion reaction to form 4 from 3, although still slow, is no longer rate-determining. Rather, the rate-determining step is the conversion of the hexyl species in 4 into 1,4-hexadiene or the release of hexadiene from the catalyst complex. This interaction involves a hydride transfer from the hexyl ligand to a coordinated butadiene. This transfer should be fast, as indicated by some earlier studies of Rh-catalyzed olefin isomerization reactions (8). The slow release of the hexadiene is therefore attributed to the low concentration of butadiene. Thus, Scheme 2 can be expanded to include complex 6, as shown in Scheme 3. The rate of release of hexadiene depends on the concentra-... 

In the model study by Tolman discussed earlier, the half-life of syn-to-anti isomerization measured by H NMR was found to be 0.36 hours at 30°C. This rate of isomerization is far too slow to affect the stereoselectivity of the hexadiene formed with the catalyst considered here. With the bimetallic catalyst, reaction rates frequently approach 4000 molecules of hexadiene/Ni atom/hour at 25°C (or ca. 1 hexadiene/Ni/second). The rate of insertion reaction d must be at least as fast as this, and the isomerization reaction would have to be even faster to affect the trans/ cis ratio of the product. 

Owing in part to its great commercial importance, the CO insertion reaction is perhaps the most thoroughly studied metal carbonyl reaction other than substition (11-13). As shown in equation 3a, the currently... 

The simple second-order kinetics of equation 5a apply for Mn(CO)5(0113) when L=CO at subatraospheric pressures. It is under this set of conditions that we have studied the Lewis acid promoted CO insertion reaction, see Figure 2. 

Prior to our studies it was recognized that ion pairing with anionic metal carbonyls could promote CO insertion and related reactions (14-16). Both kinetic and non-kinetic evidence suggests the importance of ion pairs in these types of reactions (14,17). For example, a small cation was found to greatly accelerate the CO insertion reaction relative to the same reaction with a large cation, equation 6 (14). 

---