Isocyanide complexes application

Replacement of ligands in C3H5MoCl(CO)2(NCMe)2 by isocyanides has given the substituted products C3H5MoC1(CO)2(CNR)2 (R = alkyl) and C3H5MoC1(CO)(CNBu )3, and the reduced products [MoC1(CNBu )4]2 and m-Mo(CO)2(CNR)4 (R = Me, Et). No rationale for the loss of allyl and allyl chloride in the latter two cases was proposed (206). These reactions are rare examples of the formation of low-oxidation state metal-isocyanide complexes via reductive elimination of allyl or allyl chloride from metal-allyl species. The potential applications of mono-, bis-, and tris-n-allylic systems as precursors to low-oxidation state compounds remain to be explored. Substitution and simultaneous reduction of Mo(SBu )4 also occurred on reaction with CNBu to give Mo(SBu )2(CNBu )4 (207) (see Section IV,D,2). 

Isocyanide complexes have found numerous applications in organic synthesis and catalysis. Isocyanides undergo polymerization in the presence of many transition metal complexes, for instance, metal carbonyls, metallocenes, cyclopentadienyl carbonyls, nickel(II), palladium(II), and cobalt(II) complexes. Exceptionally high activity is exhibited by nickel and cobalt carbonyls. The resulting polymers are Schiff bases ... 

A straightforward application of an Ugi reaction in natural product synthesis has been elucidated by Bauer and Armstrong [53]. These authors prepared the intermediate 9-68 in the synthesis of the complex protein phosphatase inhibitor motuporin (9-69), by using an U-4CR process starting from the acid 9-64, the aldehyde 9-65, methylamine, and the isocyanide 9-66 via 9-67. 

The chemistry of rhenium(I) is dominated by organometallic compounds which are not covered by this review. Thus, cyclopentadienyl and related compounds, where the organometallic part of the molecule dominate the properties will generally not be considered. Nevertheless, compounds with carbonyl or isocyanide co-ligands will be treated when they can be regarded as constituents of a typical coordination compound or the compounds are of fundamental interest in a radiopharmaceutical context such as the hexakis(isocyanide)rhenium(I) cations. For the same reason a separate section has been included which gives a brief summary of recent attempts to develop synthetic routes to tiicarbonylrhenium(I) complexes for nuclear medical applications. 

Martin and Furstner showed that an iron(-II) complex can be used as a precatalyst. This result is very interesting for mechanistic considerations. Unfortunately, this sophisticated complex is not very attractive for large-scale applications. The reaction is remarkably chemoselective, thus the presence of ketone, ester, isocyanide, chloride and nitrile is tolerated (Scheme 41). 

One should add, in relation to this, that catalysts that are applicable for carbon monoxide copolymerisation and isocyanide homopolymerisation are of a different nature, since they exhibit the capability of coordinating the monomer via complexes involving n° orbitals of these monomers. 

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