Pentacarbonyl carbene

The first and rate-determining step involves carbon monoxide dissociation from the initial pentacarbonyl carbene complex A to yield the coordinatively unsaturated tetracarbonyl carbene complex B (Scheme 3). The decarbonyla-tion and consequently the benzannulation reaction may be induced thermally, photochemically [2], sonochemically [3], or even under microwave-assisted conditions [4]. A detailed kinetic study by Dotz et al. proved that the initial reaction step proceeds via a reversible dissociative mechanism [5]. More recently, density functional studies on the preactivation scenario by Sola et al. tried to propose alkyne addition as the first step [6],but it was shown that this... 

Structural analogues of the /]4-vinylketene E were isolated by Wulff, Rudler and Moser [15]. The enaminoketene complex 11 was obtained from an intramolecular reaction of the chromium pentacarbonyl carbene complex 10. The silyl vinylketene 13 was isolated from the reaction of the methoxy(phenyl)-carbene chromium complex 1 and a silyl-substituted phenylacetylene 12, and -in contrast to alkene carbene complex 7 - gave the benzannulation product 14 after heating to 165 °C in acetonitrile (Scheme 6). The last step of the benzannulation reaction is the tautomerisation of the /]4-cyclohexadienone F to afford the phenol product G. The existence of such an intermediate and its capacity to undergo a subsequent step was validated by Wulff, who synthesised an... 

The fact that pentacarbonyl carbene complexes react with enynes in a chemo-selective and regiospecific way at the alkyne functionality was successfully applied in the total synthesis of vitamins of the Kj and K2 series [58]. Oxidation of the intermediate tricarbonyl(dihydrovitamin K) chromium complexes with silver oxide afforded the desired naphthoquinone-based vitamin K compounds 65. Compared to customary strategies, the benzannulation reaction proved to be superior as it avoids conditions favouring (E)/(Z)-isomerisation within the allylic side chain. The basic representative vitamin K3 (menadione) 66 was synthesised in a straightforward manner from pentacarbonyl carbene complex 1 and propyne (Scheme 38). 

In spite of the fact that silver(i) X-heterocyclic carbene complexes were widely employed as carbene-transfer reagents for the synthesis of other transition metal carbene complexes, their synthesis could also be achieved by the reaction of silver salts with relatively more labile carbene metal complexes, albeit rare. Complexes 71a-71c were reported to be synthesized from the reaction of the corresponding pentacarbonyl(carbene)chromium(i) complexes with silver(i) hexafluorophosphate in CDC13 under inert atmosphere (Scheme 17).117... 

This is a rapidly developing area of Cr chemistry, and the two main classes discussed here are the chromium(0) pentacarbonyl carbenes (56) and the chromium(III) alkyls (57). 

Certain pentacarbonyl carbene complexes of chromium rearrange spontaneously by loss of a CO ligand to give trans-substituted aminocarbyne complexes ... 

Pentacarbonyl(carbene)chromium complexes with a primary amino group at the alkenyl terminus 32, readily obtained by addition of ammonia to alkynyl-substituted complexes, initially rearranged upon heating to pentacarbonylchromium-coordinated 1-azabuta-l,3-dienes 33, which subsequently underwent [4 + 2] cycloaddition of an alkyne to give coordinated 4-ethoxy-1,4-dihydropyridines the corresponding pyridines, e.g. 34, were formed by 1,4-elimination of ethanol. ... 

This synthesis of (6), like the synthesis of (5) in Section 3.16.4.1.5 uses a phosphaalkyne. Its reaction with a chromium pentacarbonyl carbene complex provides a carbon monoxide and a carbene unit as the other ring constituents. 

Another common method of introducing NHG ligands has been to isolate silver carbene complexes first, and then react them with a platinum salt. Normally, silver oxide is reacted with an imidazolium salt, before the introduction of the platinum source at ambient or low temperature insoluble silver byproducts are conveniently filtered off. A conceptually similar approach is the prior formation of a tungsten or molybdenum pentacarbonyl carbene complex, and reaction of this with a platinum precursor. The room-temperature reaction with, for example, PtCl2(NGPh)2 results in the release of carbon monoxide and the precipitation of an undefined tungsten or molybdenum compound, which may easily be removed by filtration. 

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