Ruthenium-catalyzed olefin metathesis.
Abstract
A review. The olefin metathesis reaction is an elegant chem. transformation that entails the metal-carbene-catalyzed cleavage and reassembly of carbon-carbon double bonds. Although simple at first glance, this reaction can be applied in an enormous variety of synthetically useful permutations, such as ring closing metathesis (RCM), cross metathesis (CM), acyclic diene metathesis polymn. (ADMET), and ring-opening metathesis polymn. (ROMP). For this reason, olefin metathesis has become a valuable tool for the prepn. of mols. in org., inorg., biochem., medicinal, polymer, and materials chem. This chapter is concerned specifically with olefin metathesis reactions catalyzed by ruthenium-carbene complexes, mainly because of their great success during recent years. We begin with an overview of these catalysts, and then focus on mechanistic considerations that are important for understanding the reactivity profiles of various catalyst derivs. The second part of the chapter deals with applications of ruthenium-catalyzed olefin metathesis, esp. RCM, CM, and combination processes in org. synthesis. [on SciFinder(R)]