Nucleophilic addition to CO

CO is very sensitive to nucleophilic attack when coordinated to metal sites of low -IT basicity. On such a site, the CO carbon is positively charged because L-to-M a donation is not matched by L-to-M back donation and the CO ir orbitals are open to attack by the nucleophile. Alkyllithium reagents convert a number of metal carbonyls to the corresponding anionic acyls. The net negative charge now makes the acyl liable to electrophilic addition to the acyl oxygen to give the Fischer carbene complex, 8.1.  

The cationic charge on [Mn(CO)6] makes it much more sensitive to nucleophilic attack than is [Mo(CO)6]. In this case, hydroxide, or even water can attack coordinated CO to give an unstable metalacarboxylic acid intermediate. These decompose to COj and the metal hydride by p elimination. This can be synthetically useful as a way of removing a CO from the metal, something that is difficult to do in other ways because CO can be one of the most tightly bound ligands. 

The nucleophilic attack of methanol instead of water can give a metala-ester, L (COOR), which is stable because it has no p-H. 

Isonitriles are, if anything, more sensitive to attack the ultimate product is usually a carbene.  

In the vast majority of cases, the nucleophile adds to the face of the polyene opposite to the metal. Since the metal is likely to have bound to the least hindered face of the free polyene, we may therefore see a selective attack of the nucleophile on what was the more hindered face in the free polyene this is often useful in organic synthetic applications. 

Isonitrile complexes are more easily attacked by nucleophiles dian are CO complexes, but tsonitriles tend to bind to higher oxidation state metals where back donation is les.s effective the tinal product is a carbene.  

Nucleophilic attack at a ligand is favored when the metal is a weak back bonder, and electrophilic attack when the metal is a strong back bonder. 

Organic free radicals are a third class of reagent that can give addition and abstraction reactions, but these reactions are less well understood and have not been widely employed. Radicals are typically reactive transients, so addition and abstraction steps tend to occur only as part of a multistep reaction scheme (e.g.. Section 16.2). 

Free polyenes, such as benzene and butadiene, normally undergo electrophilic, not nucleophilic attack. In a complete reversal of their 

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Linear Alkenes and Alkynes.— Nucleophilic addition to co-ordinated alkenes can either occur on the same side as the metal (cm attack) or on the side remote from the metal (trans attack) (Scheme 3). A study on the oxidative hydrolysis of alkenes in the... 

Various structural factors have been considered in interpreting this result The most generally satisfactory approach is based on a transition>state model, advanced by Felkin and co-woricers, in which the largest group is oriented perpendiculariy to the carbonyl group. Nucleophilic addition to the carbonyl groi occurs from the opposite side. ... 

Self-consistent field molecular orbital calculations by Fenske and coworkers have confirmed that nucleophilic additions to Fischer and related complexes [e.g., (CO)sCr=CXY, (T)5-C5H5)(CO)2Mn=CXY], are frontier orbital-controlled rather than charge-controlled reactions (7-9). Interaction of the HOMO of the nucleophile with the carbene complex LUMO (localized on Ca) destroys the metal-carbon w-interaction and converts the bond to a single one. 

The effect of metal basicity on the mode of reactivity of the metal-carbon bond in carbene complexes toward electrophilic and nucleophilic reagents was emphasized in Section II above. Reactivity studies of alkylidene ligands in d8 and d6 Ru, Os, and Ir complexes reinforce the notion that electrophilic additions to electron-rich compounds and nucleophilic additions to electron-deficient compounds are the expected patterns. Notable exceptions include addition of CO and CNR to the osmium methylene complex 47. These latter reactions can be interpreted in terms of non-innocent participation of the nitrosyl ligand. 

In contrast, nucleophilic addition to a Rh -face in. Rh (CO)15] occurs on reaction with either [Rn CO) ... 

Neutral (cyclohexadienyl)manganese complexes 71, generated by nucleophilic addition to (arene)Mn(CO)3+ cations 65, undergo ligand substitution with nitrosyl hexafluorophosphate to give the corresponding (cyclohexadienyl)Mn(CO)2NO+ cations 72 (Scheme 17)93. Attack by a wide variety of nucleophiles on cations 72... 

Cyclopentadiene(diene)cobalt complexes, the largest catagory of diene complexes of Co, may be prepared by direct complexation, by preparation of the dienes within the coordination sphere of Co and by nucleophilic addition to ( j5-dienyl)CoCp cations. In comparison to (diene)CoCp complexes, there are considerably fewer examples of (diene)RhCp and (diene)IrCp complexes known. 

Nucleophilic addition to acyclic (diene)Mo+ cations has been examined. For (isoprene) Mo(CO)2L (L = Cp, Cp, In), the regioselectivity for nucleophilic attack has been found to depend on the nature of the nucleophile, the ligand L, the reaction solvent and the temperature21,813 833 193. The generation and in situ reactivity of transoid acyclic (diene)molybdenum and tungsten cations with nucleophiles has been previously mentioned (Section IV.C.2). 

Nucleophilic additions to (cyclohexadienone)Fe(CO)3 complexes (218) occur in a dia-stereospecific fashion (Scheme 56)197. For example, the Reformatsky reaction of ketone (218a) affords a simple diasteromeric alcohol product19715. The reduction of (1-carbo-methoxycyclohexa-l,3-dien-5-one)Fe(CO)3 (218b) to give 219 has been utilized in the enantioselective synthesis of methyl shikimate. In a similar fashion, cycloadditions of (2-methoxy-5-methylenecyclohexa-l,3-diene)Fe(CO)3 (220) occur in a diastereospecific fashion198. 

The asymmetric reactions discussed in this chapter may be divided into three different types of reaction, as (1) hydrometallation of olefins followed by the C—C bond formation, (2) two C C bond formations on a formally divalent carbon atom, and (3) nucleophilic addition of cyanide or isocyanide anion to a carbonyl or its analogs (Scheme 4.1). For reaction type 1, here described are hydrocarbonyla-tion represented by hydroformylation and hydrocyanation. As for type 2, Pauson-Khand reaction and olefin/CO copolymerization are mentioned. Several nucleophilic additions to aldehydes and imines (or iminiums) are described as type 3. 

Breslow and co-workers elucidated the currently accepted mechanism of the benzoin reaction in 1958 using thiamin 8. The mechanism is closely related to Lapworth s mechanism for cyanide anion catalyzed benzoin reaction (Scheme 2) [28, 29], The carbene, formed in situ by deprotonation of the corresponding thiazolium salt, undergoes nucleophilic addition to the aldehyde. A subsequent proton transfer generates a nucleophilic acyl anion equivalent known as the Breslow intermediate IX. Subsequent attack of the acyl anion equivalent into another molecule of aldehyde generates a new carbon - carbon bond XI. A proton transfer forms tetrahedral intermediate XII, allowing for collapse to produce the a-hydroxy ketone accompanied by liberation of the active catalyst. As with the cyanide catalyzed benzoin reaction, the thiazolylidene catalyzed benzoin reaction is reversible [30]. 

The most important application of organolithium reagents is their nucleophilic addition to carbonyl compounds. One of the simplest cases would be the reaction with the molecule CO itself, whose products are stable at room temperature. Recently, it was shown that a variety of RLi species are able to react with CO or f-BuNC in a newly developed liquid xenon (LXe) cell . LXe was used as reaction medium because it suppresses electron-transfer reactions, which are known to complicate the reaction . In this way the carbonyllithium and acyllithium compounds, as well as the corresponding isolobal isonitrile products, could be characterised by IR spectroscopy for the first time. 

A formal asymmetric nucleophilic addition to carbonyl compounds is achieved by Trost and his co-workers in the allylic alkylation of acylals of alkenals. An excellent enantioselectivity is observed in this alkylation. The starting acylals are easily prepared by the Lewis-acid catalyzed addition of acid anhydrides to aldehydes, by use of Trost s ligand 118 (Scheme 13), where various carbon-centered nucleophiles are available (Scheme l4),101,101a-10lc Asymmetric synthesis of some natural products is achieved according to this procedure. 

At the beginning of the new millennium, Hashmi et al. presented a broad research study on both intramolecular and intermolecular nucleophilic addition to alkynes and olefins [18]. One of the areas covered by these authors was the isomerization of co-alkynylfuran to phenols [19]. After that, Echavarren and coworkers identified the involvement of gold-carbene species in this type of process, thus opening a new branch in gold chemistry [20]. And subsequently, Yang and He demonstrated the initial activation of aryl —H bonds in the intermolecular reaction of electron-rich arenes with O-nucleophiles [21, 22]. 

In the dehydrogenation of isobutyric acid, the by-products in addition to CO and C02 are propylene and acetone. Two reaction mechanisms were proposed (340, 341) and the latter is shown in Scheme 9 (340). The formation of methacrylic acid and acetone involves a common intermediate The El elimination of a proton from I yields the methacrylic acid while a nucleophilic SN1 attack of oxide ion produces C02 and acetone (344). On the other hand. 

The intermediate iis-cyclohexadienyl anionic species from nucleophilic addition to the [(arene)Cr(CO)3] complexes are obviously highly electron rich and should be susceptible to reactions... 

Nucleophile addition to styrene derivatives (e.g. 75) coordinated with Cr(CO)3 is another example of addition-electrophile trapping.23,128 Addition of reactive anions is selective at the 3-position of the styrene ligand, leading to the stabilized benzylic anion (76). The intermediate reacts with protons and a variety of carbon electrophiles to give substituted alkylbenzene ligands (in 77) (equation 52). 

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