Tungsten metathesis reactions

Solid catalysts for the metathesis reaction are mainly transition metal oxides, carbonyls, or sulfides deposited on high surface area supports (oxides and phosphates). After activation, a wide variety of solid catalysts is effective, for the metathesis of alkenes. Table I (1, 34 38) gives a survey of the more efficient catalysts which have been reported to convert propene into ethene and linear butenes. The most active ones contain rhenium, molybdenum, or tungsten. An outstanding catalyst is rhenium oxide on alumina, which is active under very mild conditions, viz. room temperature and atmospheric pressure, yielding exclusively the primary metathesis products. 

Olefin metathesis is the transition-metal-catalyzed inter- or intramolecular exchange of alkylidene units of alkenes. The metathesis of propene is the most simple example in the presence of a suitable catalyst, an equilibrium mixture of ethene, 2-butene, and unreacted propene is obtained (Eq. 1). This example illustrates one of the most important features of olefin metathesis its reversibility. The metathesis of propene was the first technical process exploiting the olefin metathesis reaction. It is known as the Phillips triolefin process and was run from 1966 till 1972 for the production of 2-butene (feedstock propene) and from 1985 for the production of propene (feedstock ethene and 2-butene, which is nowadays obtained by dimerization of ethene). Typical catalysts are oxides of tungsten, molybdenum or rhenium supported on silica or alumina [ 1 ]. 

An obvious drawback in RCM-based synthesis of unsaturated macrocyclic natural compounds is the lack of control over the newly formed double bond. The products formed are usually obtained as mixture of ( /Z)-isomers with the (E)-isomer dominating in most cases. The best solution for this problem might be a sequence of RCAM followed by (E)- or (Z)-selective partial reduction. Until now, alkyne metathesis has remained in the shadow of alkene-based metathesis reactions. One of the reasons maybe the lack of commercially available catalysts for this type of reaction. When alkyne metathesis as a new synthetic tool was reviewed in early 1999 [184], there existed only a single report disclosed by Fiirstner s laboratory [185] on the RCAM-based conversion of functionalized diynes to triple-bonded 12- to 28-membered macrocycles with the concomitant expulsion of 2-butyne (cf Fig. 3a). These reactions were catalyzed by Schrock s tungsten-carbyne complex G. Since then, Furstner and coworkers have achieved a series of natural product syntheses, which seem to establish RCAM followed by partial reduction to (Z)- or (E)-cycloalkenes as a useful macrocyclization alternative to RCM. As work up to early 2000, including the development of alternative alkyne metathesis catalysts, is competently covered in Fiirstner s excellent review [2a], we will concentrate here only on the most recent natural product syntheses, which were all achieved by Fiirstner s team. 

In the case of other Group 6 metals, the polymerization of olefins has attracted little attention. Some molybdenum(VI) and tungsten(VI) complexes containing bulky imido- and alkoxo-ligands have been mainly used for metathesis reactions and the ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) of norbornene or related olefins [266-268]. Tris(butadiene) complexes of molybdenum ) and tungsten(O) are air-stable and sublimable above 100°C [269,270]. At elevated temperature, they showed catalytic activity for the polymerization of ethylene [271]. 

Tungsten aryloxo complexes have been shown to catalyze the intramolecular metathesis reactions of di- and tri-substituted co-unsaturated glucose and glucosamine derivatives to yield bicyclic carbohydrate-based compounds containing 12- and 14-membered rings [108,214,215]. An example is shown in Eq. 37. The tolerance for amides and esters is noteworthy, as are the yields and the size of the rings that are formed. 

Initial reports of cross-metathesis reactions using well-defined catalysts were limited to simple isolated examples the metathesis of ethyl or methyl oleate with dec-5-ene catalysed by tungsten alkylidenes [13,14] and the cross-metathesis of unsaturated ethers catalysed by a chromium carbene complex [15]. With the discovery of the well-defined molybdenum and ruthenium alkylidene catalysts 3 and 4,by Schrock [16] and Grubbs [17],respectively, the development of alkene metathesis as a tool for organic synthesis began in earnest. 

Although the application of tungsten catalyst 5 to the cross-metathesis reaction of other alkenes has not been reported, Basset has demonstrated that to-un-saturated esters [18] and glycosides [21], as well as allyl phosphines [22], are tolerated as self-metathesis substrates. 

The report by Basset and co-workers on the metathesis of sulphur-containing alkenes using a tungsten alkylidene complex, mentioned previously for the acyclic cross-metathesis reaction (see Sect. 2.2), also contained early examples of ring-opening cross-metathesis of functionalised alkenes [20]. Allyl methyl sulphide was reacted with norbornene in the presence of the tungsten catalyst 5, to yield the desired ring-opened diene 35 (Eq. 29). 

Trialkoxy complexes of tungsten with terminal phosphido ligands could not yet be isolated. They were postulated to be very reactive intermediates in different transformation reactions, e.g., during the metathesis reaction of [W2(0R)6] with phosphaalkynes [6, 14]. However, we were able to characterize the complex [(t-BuO)3W=P] (3c) by P-NMR spectroscopy by monitoring the metathesis reaction of [W2(Ot-Bu)6] with MesC=P in the tempera-... 

To prevent the latter mentioned subsequent reactions, the bulky phos-phaalkyne Ph C P as well as tungsten alkoxides of reduced size as, e.g., [W2(ONp)6] were employed in these three-component reactions with no significant success [15]. The crucial steps for the side-product free synthesis of the phosphido complexes 18 are the introduction of a phosphaalkyne possessing a moderate steric bulkiness, which lies between those of f-BuC=P and Ph C P, and resulting from the P-NMR studies (cf. Eq. 5), a reaction temperature mode allowing the complete metathesis reaction to take place at very low temperatures over a long period of time until all the phosphaalkyne has been converted into the metathesis products (about 12 h) only then is the reaction mixture allowed to reach room temperature. We found that MesC=P meets these steric requirements, and the three-component-reaction between MesC=P, [W2(Of-Bu)6] and [M(CO)5(thf)] (M = Cr, W), carried out at -78 °C and warmed up to ambient temperature within 15 h, succeeded in the synthesis and isolation of the phosphido complex 18a,b (Scheme 2) [15]. Furthermore, if t-BuC=P is incorporated into these reactions, the steric requirements of the alkoxide dimer has to be slightly increased. Thus, f-BuC=P reacts with [W2(OPh )6] and [M(CO)5(thf)] (M=Cr, W) under the... 

Tungsten surface organometallic chemistry has also been studied because a silica grafted tungsten hydride had been previously shown to exhibit some activity in alkane metathesis reaction (see below) [75, 76]. 

Both W(CO)5[C(C6Hs)2] and the analogous di-p-tolylmethylene complex have been used in model studies of the olefin metathesis reaction.2 3 In contrast to heteroatom-stabilized carbene complexes such as W(CO)s [C(OCH3)(C6Hs)], pentacarbonyl(diphenylmethylene)tungsten(0) reacts with alkenes to give cyclopropanes and 1,1-diphenylalkenes.2 The compound W(CO)5 [C(C6H5)2] is the best reported catalyst for the metathetical polymerization of 1-methylcyclo-butene.4... 

This mechanism was later confirmed experimentally in 1981 by Schrock and others, who reported the first example of alkyne metathesis by tungsten(vi)-alkylidyne complex. They have prepared tungsten alkylidyne complex 120 (Equation (21)) and found that it reacts with diphenylacetylende to give tungsten alkylidyne complex 121 and another alkyne 122 (lequiv.) (Equation (22)). Furthermore, complex 121 works as a catalyst for the alkyne metathesis reaction. 

Enyne intramolecular metathesis reactions, of the type shown in equation 61, can be very useful in organic synthesis. A number of such reactions, catalysed by tungsten or chromium carbene complexes, have been reported634,635,737 - 740. The ruthenium carbene catalysts 18-20 (Table 2) are likely to be increasingly used for this purpose because of their stability, ease of handling and good yields, as in the synthesis of various 5-, 6- and 7-membered heterocycles, e.g. equation 67741. 

A variety of isolated pentacoordinate tungsten-carbene complexes are known to be active metathesis catalysts [53]. At least one of these systems has been proposed to be living based primarily on 1H NMR identification of the propagating alkylidene [53 e]. To date, verification of the living nature of these catalysts through GPC determination of polydispersities are still pending. The solution NMR studies do confirm the mechanism of the metathesis reaction, but do not insure that all of the requisite factors for a living system are met. 

It has been speculated (5) that the olefin metathesis reaction mech-nism involves a four-centered quasi-cyclobutane transition state. The three basic steps postulated for the reaction, namely, formation of a bis-olefin-tungsten complex, transalkylidenation and olefin exchange, may account, in general, for the initiation and propagation steps in the ringopening polymerization of cycloolefins. Several modes of termination have been considered, but suitable data to test these are not yet available. 

More than half a century ago it was observed that Re207 and Mo or W carbonyls immobilized on alumina or silica could catalyze the metathesis of propylene into ethylene and 2-butene, an equilibrium reaction. The reaction can be driven either way and it is 100% atom efficient. The introduction of metathesis-based industrial processes was considerably faster than the elucidation of the mechanistic fundamentals [103, 104]. Indeed the first process, the Phillips triolefin process (Scheme 5.55) that was used to convert excess propylene into ethylene and 2-butene, was shut down in 1972, one year after Chauvin proposed the mechanism (Scheme 5.54) that earned him the Nobel prize [105]. Starting with a metal carbene species as active catalyst a metallocyclobutane has to be formed. The Fischer-type metal carbenes known at the time did not catalyze the metathesis reaction but further evidence supporting the Chauvin mechanism was published. Once the Schrock-type metal carbenes became known this changed. In 1980 Schrock and coworkers reported tungsten carbene complexes... 

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