Reactions with Coordinated Olefins

A wide variety of solvents has been used for epoxidations, but hydrocarbons are generally the solvent of choice 428 Recently, it has been shown434 that the highest rates and selectivities obtain in polar, noncoordinating solvents, such as polychlorinated hydrocarbons. Rates and selectivities were slightly lower in hydrocarbons and very poor in coordinating solvents, such as alcohols and ethers. The latter readily form complexes with the catalyst and hinder both the formation of the catalyst-hydroperoxide complex and its subsequent reaction with the olefin. 

It would be worthwhile to compare the behavior of bicyclo[ 1.1. OJbutane (XXIX) with that of the hydrocarbons described above. The smallest bicyclic hydrocarbon (XXIX) suffers two-bond cleavage by a nickel(O) catalyst to produce the allylcarbene-nickel(O) intermediate (XXX), which is trapped with coordinated olefins, giving the allylcyclopropane derivatives (XXXI) (Noyori et a ., 1971b, 1974d Noyori, 1973, 1975). The catalytic reaction of 3,3-... 

A series of reports describing cycloaddition reactions of fluorocarbons with coordinated olefins has appeared generally endo attack at a co-ordinated double bond is observed. This contrasts with electrophilic attack at unco-ordinated double bonds as described above where exo attack is preferred. The mechanism of photo-initiated addition of CaF to butadienetricarbonyliron is considered to follow Scheme 5, i.e. photolysis promotes dechelation of the hydrocarbon rather than CO... 

A large amount of the work on palladium isocyanide complexes has been mentioned earlier, in discussions on insertion reactions 30,74,108,169,170) and on addition reactions of coordinated isocyanides 25, 33, 34, 49) the reactions of [Pd(CNBu )2] with oxygen 107) and with various olefins 29, 110) were noted. 

The proposed reaction mechanism involves intermolecular nucleophilic addition of the amido ligand to the olefin to produce a zwitterionic intermediate, followed by proton transfer to form a new copper amido complex. Reaction with additional amine (presnmably via coordination to Cn) yields the hydroamination prodnct and regenerates the original copper catalyst (Scheme 2.15). In addition to the NHC complexes 94 and 95, copper amido complexes with the chelating diphosphine l,2-bis-(di-tert-bntylphosphino)-ethane also catalyse the reaction [81, 82]. 

Nickel(O) reacts with the olefin to form a nickel(0)-olefin complex, which can also coordinate the alkyl aluminum compound via a multicenter bond between the nickel, the aluminum and the a carbon atom of the trialkylaluminum. In a concerted reaction the aluminum and the hydride are transferred to the olefin. In this mechanistic hypothesis the nickel thus mostly serves as a template to bring the olefin and the aluminum compound into close proximity. No free Al-H or Ni-H species is ever formed in the course of the reaction. The adduct of an amine-stabihzed dimethylaluminum hydride and (cyclododecatriene)nickel, whose structure was determined by X-ray crystallography, was considered to serve as a model for this type of mechanism since it shows the hydride bridging the aluminum and alkene-coordinated nickel center [31]. 

Reactions of the hydrido(hydroxo) complex 2 with several substrates were examined (Scheme 6-14) [6]. The reactions are fairly complicated and several different types of reachons are observed depending on the substrate. Methyl acrylate and small Lewis bases such as CO, P(OMe)3, BuNC coordinate to the five-coordinated complex 2 affording the corresponding six-coordinate complexes. In reactions with the unsaturated bonds in dimethylacetylenedicarboxylate, carbon dioxide, phenylisocyanate indications for the addition across the O-H bond but not across the Os-OH bond were obtained. In reactions with olefins such as methyl vinyl ketone or allyl alcohol, elimination of a water molecule was observed to afford a hydrido metalla-cyclic compound or a hydrido (ethyl) complex. No OH insertion product was obtained. 

The reductive coupling of of dienes containing amine groups in the backbones allows for the production of alkaloid skeletons in relatively few steps [36,46,47]. Epilupinine 80 was formed in 51% yield after oxidation by treatment of the tertiary amine 81 with PhMeSiEh in the presence of catalytic 70 [46]. Notably, none of the trans isomer was observed in the product mixture (Eq. 11). The Cp fuMcTIIF was found to catalyze cyclization of unsubstituted allyl amine 82 to provide 83. This reaction proceeded in shorter time and with increased yield relative to the same reaction with 70 (Eq. 12) [47]. Substitution of either alkene prevented cyclization, possibly due to competitive intramolecular stabilization of the metal by nitrogen preventing coordination of the substituted olefin, and resulted in hydrosilylation of the less substituted olefin. 

In the case of 22b-e, the butadienes 24b-d and the hexatriene 24 e, respectively, are also obtained on trapping with cinnamaldehyde, the 1,3-diene 24a is even the sole reaction product. It is quite obvious that the olefins 24 are secondary products of the trapping reaction of 9 arising by photofragmentation of 22. The other product is phenyldioxophosphorane (23) which also numbers among the short-lived compounds of quinquevalent phosphorus with coordination number 3 (see Sect. 3.1). 

In order to rationalize the catalyst-dependent selectivity of cyclopropanation reaction with respect to the alkene, the ability of a transition metal for olefin coordination has been considered to be a key factor (see Sect. 2.2.1 and 2.2.2). It was proposed that palladium and certain copper catalysts promote cyclopropanation through intramolecular carbene transfer from a metal carbene to an alkene molecule coordinated to the same metal atom25,64. The preferential cyclopropanation of terminal olefins and the less hindered double bond in dienes spoke in favor of metal-olefin coordination. Furthermore, stable and metastable metal-carbene-olefin complexes are known, some of which undergo intramolecular cyclopropane formation, e.g. 426 - 427 415). 

Pampus and co-workers (65) established the relative reactivity of a series of olefins to be 1-butene > 2-butene > isobutylene. This order of reactivity has been confirmed by others, and exactly parallels the reported order of stability of transition metal (Rh) complexes with these olefins (66), thus clearly implicating precomplexation of the olefin with the transition metal prior to metathesis. On a limited scale, Schrock observed a similar order of reactivity for olefins in reactions with (175-C5H5 )TaCl2[=CH(CH3 )3 ], which is known to possess a nucleophilic car-bene carbon (64). This complex also provides the requisite empty coordination site needed for precomplexation. In that study, cyclopropanes or metathesis olefins were not observed as products. 

Evidently, this interesting reaction starts with coordination of Pd by the allylic fragment at the site of attachment of one of the acyloxy groups. Then the anion of the nitro compound is involved in C,C-coupling with olefin (18) followed by successive ionization of the nitro fragment. Finally, Pd is mediated in 0,C-coupling... 

Wacker cyclization has proved to be one of the most versatile methods for functionalization of olefins.58,59 However, asymmetric oxidative reaction with palladium(II) species has received only scant attention. Using chiral ligand 1,1 -binaphthyl-2,2 -bis(oxazoline)-coordinated Pd(II) as the catalyst, high enantioselectivity (up to 97% ee) has been attained in the Wacker-type cyclization of o-alkylphenols (66a-f) (Scheme 8-24). 

Hegedus proposed the probable course of the cyclization reaction, which follows a Wacker-type reaction mechanism. Coordination of the olefin to Pd(II) results in precipitate 110, which upon treatment with Et3N undergoes intramolecular amination to afford intermediate 111. As expected, the nitrogen atom attack occurs in a 5-exo-trig fashion to afford 112. Hydride... 

As mentioned in the introduction, early transition metal complexes are also able to catalyze hydroboration reactions. Reported examples include mainly metallocene complexes of lanthanide, titanium and niobium metals [8, 15, 29]. Unlike the Wilkinson catalysts, these early transition metal catalysts have been reported to give exclusively anti-Markonikov products. The unique feature in giving exclusively anti-Markonikov products has been attributed to the different reaction mechanism associated with these catalysts. The hydroboration reactions catalyzed by these early transition metal complexes are believed to proceed with a o-bond metathesis mechanism (Figure 2). In contrast to the associative and dissociative mechanisms discussed for the Wilkinson catalysts in which HBR2 is oxidatively added to the metal center, the reaction mechanism associated with the early transition metal complexes involves a a-bond metathesis step between the coordinated olefin ligand and the incoming borane (Figure 2). The preference for a o-bond metathesis instead of an oxidative addition can be traced to the difficulty of further oxidation at the metal center because early transition metals have fewer d electrons. 

The direct attack of the front-oxygen peroxo center yields the lowest activation barrier for all species considered. Due to repulsion of ethene from the complexes we failed [61] to localize intermediates with the olefin precoordinated to the metal center, proposed as a necessary first step of the epoxidation reaction via the insertion mechanism. Recently, Deubel et al. were able to find a local minimum corresponding to ethene coordinated to the complex MoO(02)2 OPH3 however, the formation of such an intermediate from isolated reagents was calculated to be endothermic [63, 64], The activation barriers for ethene insertion into an M-0 bond leading to the five-membered metallacycle intermediate are at least 5 kcal/mol higher than those of a direct front-side attack [61]. Moreover, the metallacycle intermediate leads to an aldehyde instead of an epoxide [63]. Based on these calculated data, the insertion mechanism of ethene epoxidation by d° TM peroxides can be ruled out. 

---