Organosamarium chemistry

Highly Reactive Organosamarium Chemistry via Metal Vapor and Sm(II) Syntheses... 

One of the best examples of the high reactivity achievable via organosamarium(II) chemistry is the reaction of (C Me )pSm(THF) with CO (4 ). This compound reacts under a variety of conditions with CO to give complex mixtures of products. Under 90 psi of CO in THF, a crystallographically characterizable product separates (Reaction 5). 

Among various samarium reagents, Sml2 has been most widely used for many transformations in organic synthesis. Since many reviews on Sml2 chemistry have been already published,18,18a 18e this chapter covers the organosamarium-induced reactions other than those of Sml2. 

The fact that organosamarium allyl complexes of the type Cp 2Sm(CH2CH=CHR) can arise from the treatment of Cp 2Sm or [Cp 2Sm(/r-H)]2 with a variety of olefin and diene substrates makes samarium chemistry more intriguing. The reaction modes are illustrated in Scheme 18. These allylsamarium complexes 55 react with C02 to afford the carboxylate products 56, which participate in monometallic/bimetallic interconversions (Equation (10)). Carbon disulfide and 0=C=S also insert into carbon-samarium bonds, which form only monometallic species.29... 

A nice extension of this chemistry to sequential anionic/radical/anionic sequence was also provided [5, 9]. Normally after acyl addition and radical cyclization onto a C = C bond, the newly formed carbon radical is reduced to an organosamarium intermediate which is subsequently protonated. However, as depicted in Scheme 5, this organosamarium may be trapped in the presence of a ketone substrate, thus terminating this three-step process. In another demonstration of how such anions may be further exploited, substrates possessing vinyl ethers as the radical acceptor were found to under-... 

Nitriles and esters are also unreactive in Smh-promoted Barbier reactions. A very useful procedure for lactone synthesis has been developed making use of this fact. Treatment of 7-bromobutyrates or 8-bro-movalerates with Smh in THF/HMPA in the presence of aldehydes or ketones results in generation of lactones through a Barbier-type process (equations 25 and 26). This nicely complements the -metaUo ester or homoenolate chemistry of organosamarium(III) reagents described above (Section 1.9.2.1), and also the Reformatsky-type chemistry promoted by Sml2 (Section 1.9.2.3.2). Further, it provides perhaps the most convenient route to 7- and 8-carbanionic ester equivalents yet devised. 

Metal vapour s)mthesis in rare-earth chemistry has been used as early as 1977 to prepare rare-earth butadiene and alk)me complexes by interaction of butadienes and alk)mes (respectively) with vaporised metals (Evans, 1987 Evans et al., 1977), and we have seen in Section 3 that low-valent scandium complexes can also be made by this technique. Additionally, condensation of rare-earth vapours with a 7i-acceptor such as 1,4-di-(t-Butyl)diazadiene (DAD) has produced compounds of general formula [R(DAD)3], except with scandium where the composition is [Sc(DAD)2]. Extensive metal-ligand electron transfer is effective in these molecules so the real oxidation state of the rare earth (at least at room temperature) is in fact + 3. Note that the first structurally characterised organosamarium(II)... 

Theoretical Treatment of Redox Processes Involving Lanthanide(II) Compounds Reactivity of Organosamarium(II) and Organothulium(II) Complexes with CO2 and Pyridine, S. LabouiUe, F. Nief, L. Maron, Journal of Physical Chemistry A 2011, 115, 8295. 

---