Organometallic compounds, reactions with alkenes

The transmetallation of various organometallic compounds (Hg, Tl, Sn, B, Si, etc.) with Pd(II) generates the reactive cr-aryl, alkenyl, and alkyl Pd compounds. These carbopalladation products can be used without isolation for further reactions. Pd(II) and Hg(II) salts have similar reactivity toward alkenes and aromatic compounds, but Hg(II) salts form stable mercuration products with alkenes and aromatic rings. The mercuration products are isolated and handled easily. On the other hand, the corresponding palladation products are too reactive to be isolated. The stable mercuration products can be used for various reactions based on facile transmetallation with Pd(II) salts to generate the very reactive palladation products 399 and 400 in rim[364,365]. 

In Grignard reactions, Mg(0) metal reacts with organic halides of. sp carbons (alkyl halides) more easily than halides of sp carbons (aryl and alkenyl halides). On the other hand. Pd(0) complexes react more easily with halides of carbons. In other words, alkenyl and aryl halides undergo facile oxidative additions to Pd(0) to form complexes 1 which have a Pd—C tr-bond as an initial step. Then mainly two transformations of these intermediate complexes are possible insertion and transmetallation. Unsaturated compounds such as alkenes. conjugated dienes, alkynes, and CO insert into the Pd—C bond. The final step of the reactions is reductive elimination or elimination of /J-hydro-gen. At the same time, the Pd(0) catalytic species is regenerated to start a new catalytic cycle. The transmetallation takes place with organometallic compounds of Li, Mg, Zn, B, Al, Sn, Si, Hg, etc., and the reaction terminates by reductive elimination. 

The Peterson olefination can be viewed as a silicon variant of the Wittig reaction, the well-known method for the formation of carbon-carbon double bonds. A ketone or aldehyde 1 can react with an a-silyl organometallic compound 2—e.g. with M = Li or Mg—to yield an alkene 3. 

In the reaction of 3-( 1 -imidazolyl)-2-alkene-1 -ones with organometallic compounds or sodium borohydride (NaBIti), only the route leading to a 2-alkene-l-one via a 1,4-addition reflects azolide chemistry. 

By analogy with allylic organometallic compounds (see Section . ), the possibility of achieving intramolecular related zinc-ene reactions involving allenylzinc species acting as ene-components has been investigated. Such reactions benefit from favorable thermodynamics and were thus expected to proceed more readily than the related intermolecular additions of allenylzincs to alkynes or alkenes. 

Cross-coupling of allylic compounds occurs by transmetallation between 7i-allyl intermediates and organometallic compounds of Mg, Zn, B, Al, Si and Sn, and subsequent reductive elimination. Reaction of the allylic dithioacetal 180 with MeMgBr in the presence of an Ni catalyst affords alkenes 184 bearing a tert-butyl group [90]. In this reaction, generation of the 7i-allylnickel 181 by oxidative addition and subsequent transmetallation with MeMgBr afford 182. Then the methylated product 183 is formed by reductive elimination, and finally the dimethylated product 184 is formed by the sequence of similar reactions. 

Addition reactions of three kinds of main group metal compounds, namely R—M X (carbometallation, when R are alkyl, alkenyl, aryl or allyl groups), H—M X (hydrometallation with metal hydrides) and R—M —M"—R (dimetallation with dimetal compounds) to alkenes and alkynes, are important synthetic routes to useful organometallic compounds. Some reactions proceed without a catalyst, but many are catalysed by transition metal complexes. 

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