Metal nitrenes

As will be discussed later, it is possible a4> that the thermolysis involves a metal-nitrene complex whereas the photolysis involves the free nitrene. The product distribution is not affected by the presence of a photosensitizer, but since ferrocene itself is both an efficient triplet quencher as well as a sensitizer 26,27) jt is very difficult to probe the spin state of ferrocenyl nitrene at the moment of reaction. The cycli-zation appears to be a singlet reaction since the yield of 27 in benzene solution is essentially unaffected by oxygen or the presence of hydro-quinone a5>. 

On the other hand, thermolysis of ferrocenylsulpkonyl azide (14) in aliphatic solvents may lead to the predominant formation of the amide (16) 17>. A 48.4% yield of (16) was obtained from the thermolysis in cyclohexane while an 85.45% yield of 16 was formed in cyclohexene. Photolysis of 14 in these solvents led to lower yields of sulphonamide 32.2% in cyclohexane, 28.2% in cyclohexene. This suggests again that a metal-nitrene complex is an intermediate in the thermolysis of 14 since hydrogen-abstraction appears to be an important made of reaction for such sulphonyl nitrene-metal complexes. Thus, benzenesulphonamide was the main product (37%) in the copper-catalyzed decomposition of the azide in cyclohexane, and the yield was not decreased (in fact, it increased to 49%) in the presence of hydroquinone 34>. On the other hand, no toluene-sulphonamide was reported from the reaction of dichloramine-T and zinc in cyclohexane. 

An alternative organometallic approach for functionalizing C-H bonds is by means of metal carbene- or metal nitrene-induced C-H insertions (Equations (1) and (2)).35 36 A major advantage of this approach over other methods is that the reaction is routinely catalytic and by using chiral catalysts, high enantioselectivity can be achieved. One of the major challenges with the metal carbene- and metal nitrene-induced C-H insertion is controlling the... 

In summary, metal carbene and metal nitrene C-H functionalizations have undergone explosive growth over the last decade. Major advances have been made in both intermolecular and intramolecular versions of this chemistry. The reactions represent new strategic methods for synthesis, and with the foundation set, it is expected that the chemistry will be even more broadly used in synthesis in the future. 

If metal carbene chemistry can be said to be mature, metal nitrene chemistry is in its infancy. Although the first report of a catalytic process used benzenesulfonyl azide,high temperatures were required, and no one has yet provided a synthetically viable method to use azides as sources of nitrenes. Instead, iminophenyliod-inanes (44), formed from the corresponding sulfonamide by oxidation with... 

Thus far, enantioselective intramolecular aziridination via metal nitrene intermediates has not been successful. Bromamine-T has recently been shown to be a viable source of nitrene for addition to alkenes in copper halide catalyzed reactions, " and so has iodosylbenzene (Phl=0) that forms 44 in situ. Conceptually, aziridination does not necessarily fall between cyclopropanation and epoxidation, as some have suggested. Instead, metal nitrene chemistry has unique problems and potential advantages associated with the electron pair at nitrogen that are yet to be fully overcome. 

Like carbene insertions into carbon-hydrogen bonds, metal nitrene insertions occur in both intermolecular and intramolecular reactions.For intermole-cular reactions, a manganese(III) meio-tetrakis(pentafluorophenyl)porphyrm complex gives high product yields and turnovers up to 2600 amidations could be effected directly with amides using PhI(OAc)2 (Eq. 51). The most exciting development in intramolecular C—H reactions thus far has been the oxidative cychzation of sulfamate esters (e.g., Eq. 52), as well as carbamates (to oxazolidin-2-ones), ° and one can expect further developments that are of synthetic... 

Although not as common as the ylide derived from metal carbenes, the ylide-like species generated from metal nitrene or free nitrene has been attracting increasing attention in recent years. The overall transformation is parallel to that of metal carbene reactions. Progress in this direction is also covered in this chapter. 

The reduction of aromatic nitro compounds to the corresponding amines was catalyzed by [Ru3(CO)i2] in combination with aliphatic amine cocatalysts (95). A mixture of diglyme and water was used as a solvent, turnover frequencies were about 5000 h-1, and a CO partial pressure of 20-50 atm was necessary. The reaction is highly selective for aromatic amines. It was speculated that the reaction proceeds via an intramolecular hydrogen transfer in a hydrido-metal-nitrene intermediate without prior formation of H2 in the water gas shift reaction. 

It has been proposed119 that oxygen abstraction at a coordinated nitrosyl group could lead to formation of a metal nitrene, M—N . The attack of this highly reactive species at another nitrosyl group, or its combination with another nitrene, could result in the gaseous products identified (equations 45 and 46). 

Such a mechanism is also considered to operate in the photochemical reaction of Mo(jt-Cp)(CO)2(NO) with triphenylphosphine. Isolation of the isocyanate complex Mo(NCO)(jt-Cp)CO(PPh3)2 together with Mo(jt-Cp)(CO)NO(PPh3) results from trapping of the metal nitrene by carbon monoxide in an intramolecular process.122 Nitrene formation is also considered to participate in the process of conversion of Mo(NO)2(S2CNR2)2 to Mo(NO)(S2CNR2)3 using triphenylphosphine.119... 

The mechanism of formation of a coordinated tetraazadiene ligand in equations (10) and (11) has been discussed extensively.173 175 191,195 In Scheme 7 the proposed routes and intermediates have been summarized. One proposal (route a) involves initial formation of a monodentate, organic azide coordinates (72), followed by a 3-N(azide) l-... 

After successful application of the silver catalyst shown in olefin aziridination (Section 6.1.1), He and coworkers showed that intramolecular amidation was possible with both hydrocarbon-tethered carbamates and sulfamate esters.24 They found that only the Bu3tpy silver complex could catalyze efficient intramolecular amidation, while other pyridine ligands gave either dramatically lower yields or complicated product mixtures. In an interesting control study, both copper and gold were also tested in this reaction. Both the copper and gold Bu tpy complexes can mediate olefin aziridination, but only silver can catalyze intramolecular C-H amidation, indicating that the silver catalyst forms a more reactive metal nitrene intermediate. 

Zraras-aziridine products were still detected from r/.v-olefin substrates, and sometimes as the predominant product. Current results on silver-catalyzed nitrene transfer reactions, indicate that silver probably can interact with iminoiodanes to generate a silver nitrene precursor. This precursor can lead to reactions via either a concerted metal nitrene or a stepwise radical pathway, depending on the substrate and reaction conditions (Scheme 6.8). 

Metal nitrene complexes were used in a number of C-H amination reactions (recent reviews [358, 359]). Copper ketiminate complexes react with azides to nitrene complexes, which were isolated [360]. (p-Ketiminate)copper(I) complex 262 (2.5 mol%) serves therefore as an efficient catalyst for the intermolecular C-H amination of alkylarenes, cycloalkanes, or benzaldehydes 260 using adamantyl azide 261 as the nitrogen source ig. 68) [361]. The corresponding adamantyl amines or amides 263 were isolated in 80-93% yield. Copper complex 262 forms initially a dinuclear bridged complex with 261. From this a copper nitrene complex is generated by elimination of nitrogen, which mediates the hydrogen abstraction from 260. 

Imidoiodanes and especially A-tosyliminoiodanes, ArINTs (Section 2.1.12.4), have found broad synthetic application as useful nitrene precursors in transition metal catalyzed aziridination of aUcenes and amidation of various organic substrates [584, 761]. Mansuy and coworkers in 1984 first reported the aziridination of alkenes with tosyliminoiodane PhINTs in the presence of iron- or manganese-porphyrins [762]. This reaction has a mechanism similar to the metal-catalyzed oxygen atom transfer reactions of iodosylbenzene (Section 3.1.20) and involves a metal-nitrene complex as the intermediate. 

In general high pressure and temperature are required for these reactions to occur. However there are significant examples of reactions catalysed at atmospheric pressure, in part icular for the synthesis of isocyanates (4.2.5.). In the majority of cases the most important steps of these reactions are supposed to be the deoxygenation of the nitro function by carbon monoxide iving a nitrene residue bound to the metal centre, followed by insertion of carbon monoxide into the metal-nitrene bond. This is a likely hyphotesis since nitrene complexes can be obtained by stoichiometric reactions of nitro compounds with metal carbonyls. Conversion of the imido metal complex to the observed... 

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