Vinyl compounds heterogeneous catalysis

Reactions of soluble metal complexes, whose mechanisms of catalysis appear to be reasonably well known, can serve as a guide to the main reaction paths followed on heterogeneous catalysts. Mononuclear complexes catalyze syn addition of H2 to alkynes to yield initially only cis isomers, as in equation (25). 5 More recently, Muetterties and coworkers showed that the dinuclear rhodium hydride complex ( yi-H)Rh[P(OPr )3]2 2 (38) converts alkynes to trans isomers as initial products (equation 26). The alkyne addition compound (39) was isolated its structure shows the vinyl group bonded to one rhodium atom by a a-bond and to the other by a ir-bond, while the substituents on the vinyl group are trans to one another. This structure resembles ones hypothesized earlier to explain the formation of trans isomers and alkanes. Hydrogenations of alkynes which are catalyzed by the dinuclear rhodium hydride are much slower than the hydrogenation of an alkene catalyzed by the dinuclear tetrahydride (40), which is formed rapidly from (38) in the presence of H2 (equation 11). ... 

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