Olefin metatheses reaction

The metathesis reactions of olefins/ enynes and alkynes, has been the process, together with palladium-catalysed cross-coupling reactions, that has had the most profound impact on the formation of carbon-carbon bonds and the art of total synthesis in the last quarter of the 20th century. 

Some of these catalysts have been demonstrated to be able to promote ROMP and RCM in polar solvents such as water and methanol 

Further ruthenium catalysts such as those developed by Grubbs (63/ 64/  

Nevertheless, with the exception of uses in ROMP processes, only a limited number of industrial processes use olefin metathesis. This is mainly due to difficulties associated with removing ruthenium from the final products and recycling the catalyst. To tackle these problems, there is tremendous activity in this area, dealing with supported or tagged versions of homogeneous catalysts. 

In the next two sections we limit our analysis to a few recent examples of the use of water or ionic liquids in metathesis reactions using new technical solutions or ionically tagged catalysts. 

1 Highly active ruthenium (pre)catalysts for metathesis reactions 

Syuzanna Harutyunyan, Anna Michrowska and Karol Grela. 169 

2 A HIGHLY ACTIVE AND READILY RECYCLABLE OLEFIN METATHESIS CATALYST 

Stephen J. Connon, Aideen M. Dunne and Siegfried Biechert. 174 

2 Ring-closing metathesis of an acyclic diene and subsequent catalyst 

2 TRANSITION METAL-MEDIATED SOLID-SUPPORTED REACTIONS 6.2.1 Olefin Metathesis Reactions 

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To date a number of reactions have been carried out in ionic liquids [for examples, see Dell Anna et al. J Chem Soc, Chem Commun 434 2002 Nara, Harjani and Salunkhe Tetrahedron Lett 43 1127 2002 Semeril et al. J Chem Soc Chem Commun 146 2002 Buijsman, van Vuuren and Sterrenburg Org Lett 3 3785 2007]. These include Diels-Alder reactions, transition-metal mediated catalysis, e.g. Heck and Suzuki coupling reactions, and olefin metathesis reactions. An example of ionic liquid acceleration of reactions carried out on solid phase is given by Revell and Ganesan [Org Lett 4 3071 2002]. 

Olefin metathesis is the transition-metal-catalyzed inter- or intramolecular exchange of alkylidene units of alkenes. The metathesis of propene is the most simple example in the presence of a suitable catalyst, an equilibrium mixture of ethene, 2-butene, and unreacted propene is obtained (Eq. 1). This example illustrates one of the most important features of olefin metathesis its reversibility. The metathesis of propene was the first technical process exploiting the olefin metathesis reaction. It is known as the Phillips triolefin process and was run from 1966 till 1972 for the production of 2-butene (feedstock propene) and from 1985 for the production of propene (feedstock ethene and 2-butene, which is nowadays obtained by dimerization of ethene). Typical catalysts are oxides of tungsten, molybdenum or rhenium supported on silica or alumina [ 1 ]. 

A mechanism for olefin metathesis reactions, which is now generally accepted, was first proposed in 1970 by Herisson and Chauvin [4]. It is outlined... 

As stated above, olefin metathesis is in principle reversible, because all steps of the catalytic cycle are reversible. In preparatively useful transformations, the equilibrium is shifted to one side. This is most commonly achieved by removal of a volatile alkene, mostly ethene, from the reaction mixture. An obvious and well-established way to classify olefin metathesis reactions is depicted in Scheme 2. Depending on the structure of the olefin, metathesis may occur either inter- or intramolecularly. Intermolecular metathesis of two alkenes is called cross metathesis (CM) (if the two alkenes are identical, as in the case of the Phillips triolefin process, the term self metathesis is sometimes used). The intermolecular metathesis of an a,co-diene leads to polymeric structures and ethene this mode of metathesis is called acyclic diene metathesis (ADMET). Intramolecular metathesis of these substrates gives cycloalkenes and ethene (ring-closing metathesis, RCM) the reverse reaction is the cleavage of a cyclo-... 

Scheme 2 Different modes of the olefin metathesis reaction cross metathesis (CM), ringclosing metathesis (RCM), ring-opening metathesis (ROM), acyclic diene metathesis polymerization (ADMET), and ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP)...

Although olefin metathesis had soon after its discovery attracted considerable interest in industrial chemistry, polymer chemistry and, due to the fact that transition metal carbene species are involved, organometallic chemistry, the reaction was hardly used in organic synthesis for many years. This situation changed when the first structurally defined and stable carbene complexes with high activity in olefin metathesis reactions were described in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A selection of precatalysts discovered in this period and representative applications are summarized in Table 1. 

Hexacarbonyldicobalt complexes of alkynes have served as substrates in a variety of olefin metathesis reactions. There are several reasons for complex-ing an alkyne functionality prior to the metathesis step [ 125] (a) the alkyne may chelate the ruthenium center, leading to inhibition of the catalytically active species [125d] (b) the alkyne may participate in the metathesis reaction, giving undesired enyne metathesis products [125f] (c) the linear structure of the alkyne may prevent cyclization reactions due to steric reasons [125a-d] and (d) the hexacarbonylcobalt moiety can be used for further transformations [125c,f]. 

Several transition metal complexes can catalyze the exchange of partners of two double bonds. Known as the olefin metathesis reaction, this process can be used to close or open rings, as well to interchange double-bond components. 

Scheme 8.16. Examples of the Ring-Closing Olefin Metathesis Reaction...

The synthesis in Scheme 13.49 features use of an enantioselective allylic boronate reagent derived from diisopropyl tartrate to establish the C(4) and C(5) stereochemistry. The ring is closed by an olefin metathesis reaction. The C(2) methyl group was introduced by alkylation of the lactone enolate. The alkylation is not stereoselective, but base-catalyzed epimerization favors the desired stereoisomer by 4 1. 

The olefin metathesis reaction was also a key feature of the synthesis of epothilone A completed by a group at the Technical University in Braunschweig, Germany (Scheme 13.61). This synthesis employs a series of stereoselective additions to create the correct substituent stereochemistry. Two enantiomerically pure starting materials... 

Samuel Danishefsky s group at the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York has also been active in the synthesis of the natural epothilones and biologically active analogs. One of their syntheses also used the olefin metathesis reaction (not shown). The synthesis in Scheme 13.62 used an alternative approach to create the macrocycle, as indicated in the retrosynthetic scheme. The stereochemistry at C(6), C(7), and C(8) was established by a TiCl4-mediated cyclocondensation (Step A). The thiazole-containing side chain was created by reaction sequences F and G. The... 

Grubbs applied his ring-closing olefin metathesis reaction to the synthesis of (lS,5R)-44 as shown in Scheme 67 [99]. The key-step was the cyclization of A to give C. The unreacted anti-isomer B could be recovered and equilibrated to a mixture of A and B. 

E.O. Fischer s discovery of (CO)sW[C(Ph)(OMe)D in 1964 marks the beginning of the development of the chemistry of metal-carbon double bonds (1). At about this same time the olefin metathesis reaction was discovered (2), but It was not until about five years later that Chauvln proposed (3) that the catalyst contained an alkylidene ligand and that the mechanism consisted of the random reversible formation of all possible metallacyclobutane rings. Yet low oxidation state Fischer-type carbene complexes were found not to be catalysts for the metathesis of simple olefins. It is now... 

Adducts of M(CH-f-Bu)(NAr)(OR)2 complexes were prepared and studied as models for the initial olefin adduct [66] in an olefin metathesis reaction [67]. PMe3 was found to attack the CNO face of yy -M(CH-f-Bu)(NAr)(OR)2 rotamers to give TBP species in which the phosphine is bound in an axial position... 

The ruthenium compounds described above show a distinctly lower metathetic activity than the molybdenum alkenylidene complex 24 developed by Schrock et al. (Fig. 4, see also the chapter by R.R. Schrock, this volume) [18], which is another standard catalyst for any type of olefin metathesis reaction. However, they... 

The key steps in Mehta s synthesis of (+)-A9(12)-eapnellene (408), also constitute a formal olefin metathesis reaction. 

Whereas Hegedus [335] and Danishefsky [336] were the first to discover a tandem Heck reaction from o-allyl-A -acryloylanilines leading to tricyclic pyrrolo[l,2-a]indoles or pyridino[l,2-a]indoles [336], it has been the fantastic work of Grigg to unleash the enormous potential of this chemistry. Grigg and his co-workers parlayed their Pd-catalyzed tandem polycyclization-anion capture sequence into a treasure trove of syntheses starting with IV-allyl-o-haloanilines [337-345], Diels-Alder and olefin metathesis reactions can be interwoven into the sequence or can serve as the culmination step, as can a wide variety of nucleophiles. An example of the transformation of 289 to 290 is shown below in which indole is the terminating nucleophile [340],... 

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