Ruthenium catalysis Subject

This excellent regiocontrol was exploited by subjecting terminal alkenes and hydroxyalkynoates to ruthenium catalysis conditions to afford butenolides and pentenolides (Equation (23)).36 The Alder-ene reaction occurs preferentially to form the G-G bond at the alpha-carbon of the alkynoate. The unusually high regioselectivity is attributed to a synergistic effect derived from an enhanced coordination of the hydroxyl group to the ruthenium. 

Metal enolates have played a Umited role in the metal-catalyzed isomerization of al-kenes . As illustrated in a comprehensive review by Bouwman and coworkers, ruthenium complex Ru(acac)3 (51) has been used to isomerize a wide range of substituted double bonds, including aUylic alcohols (131), to the corresponding ketones (132) (equation 38) . The isomerization of aUylic alcohols affords products that have useful applications in natural product synthesis and in bulk chemical processes. An elegant review by Fogg and dos Santos shows how these complexes can be used in tandem catalysis, where an alkene is subjected to an initial isomerization followed by a hydroformylation reaction ... 

During the past few decades, a wide variety of molecules with transition metal-carhon mulhple bonds have been studied. The chemistry of doubly bonded species - carbenes - is particularly interesting because it leads to several synthetically important transformations, and for this reason, metal carbenes are the main subject of this chapter. Our discussion begins with a classification of metal-carbene complexes based on electronic structure, which provides a way to understand their reactivity patterns. Next, we summarize the mechanistic highlights of three metal-carbene-mediated reactions carbonyl olefinafion, olefin cyclopropanafion, and olefin metathesis. Throughout the second half of the chapter, we focus mainly on ruthenium-carbene olefin metathesis catalysts, in part because of widespread interest in the applications of these catalysts, and in part because of our expertise in this area. We conclude with some perspectives on the chemistry of metal carbenes and on future developments in catalysis. 

The possibilities for the formation of carbon—carbon bonds involving aromatic compounds have been enormously enhanced by the use of transition metal catalysts, and this area has been the subject of several reviews. Some of these concentrate on the applications of specific metals, and there have been surveys of the use of compounds of silver, copper and nickel,mthenium, and palladium in catalysis. The metalation of carbon-hydrogen bonds, preceding functionalization, may be aided by carboxylate ions, and this subject has also been reviewed. There is evidence here for concerted base-assisted deprotonation as shown in (10). In the carboxylate-assisted reaction of aryl ketimines with alkyl halides, a ruthenium-bonded intermediate (11) has been proposed, which subsequently adds the alkyl halide. " ... 

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