Raney Nickel-catalyzed coupling

Table 2.1 lists some of the mechanistic studies of organic and organometallic reactions reported in the literature by ESI-MS. All sorts of reactions have been successfully explored in the gas phase, such as the Baylis-Hillman reaction [211-213], C-H or N-H activation [214—219], cydopropanation reaction [220], Diels-Alder reactions [221], displacement reactions [222], electrophilic fluorination [223, 224], Fischer indole synthesis [225], Gilman reaction [226, 227], Grubbs metathesis reaction [228-231], Heck reaction [194], methylenation [232], oxidation [233, 234], Petasis olefination reaction [235], Raney Nickel-catalyzed coupling [236], ruthenium... 

In fact, this strong pH-dependence of the equilibrium Galvani potential difference can be observed with the above construction. Such a large pH-dependence can even be found with a suspension of Raney nickel in contact with a normal platinum electrode. Attempts with other metals, which are known not to catalyze reaction (R2), yielded irreproducible results. This example serves to illustrate the requirement of an unobstructed phase transfer, which in this case was coupled with a chemical reaction. 

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