Two new Ru-based metathesis catalysts, 3 and 4, have been synthesized for the purpose of comparing their catalytic properties to those of their cis-selective nitrate analogues, 1 and 2. Although catalysts 3 and 4 exhibited slower initiation rates than 1 and 2, they maintained high cis-selectivity in homodimerization and ring-opening metathesis polymerization reactions. Furthermore, the nitrite ...

A silver-free methodology was developed for the synthesis of unprecedented N-heterocyclic carbene ruthenium indenylidene complexes bearing a bidentate picolinate ligand. The highly stable (SIPr)(picolinate)RuCl(indenylidene) complex 4a (SIPr = 1,3-bis(2-6-diisopropylphenyl)imidazolidin-2-ylidene) demonstrated excellent latent behaviour in ring closing metathesis (RCM) reaction and could be acti...

Chiral ruthenium olefin metathesis catalysts can perform asymmetric ring-closing reactions in > or = 90% ee with low catalyst loadings. To illustrate the practicality of these reactions and the products they form, an enantioselective total synthesis of 5-epi-citreoviral was completed by using an asymmetric ring-closing olefin metathesis reaction as a key step early in the synthesis. All of the ...

The Z-selective cross metathesis of allylic-substituted olefins is explored with recently developed ruthenium-based metathesis catalysts. The reaction proceeds with excellent stereoselectivity for the Z-isomer (typically >95%) and yields of up to 88% for a variety of allylic substituents. This includes the first synthesis of Z-α,β-unsaturated acetals by cross metathesis and their elaboration to...

A detailed DFT study of the mechanism of metathesis of fluoroethene, 1-fluoroethene, 1,1-difluoroethene, cis- and trans-1,2-difluoroethene, tetrafluoroethene and chlorotrifluoroethene catalysed with the Hoveyda-Grubbs 2(nd) generation catalyst was performed. It revealed that a successful metathesis of hydrofluoroethenes is hampered by a high preference for a non-productive catalytic cycle proce...

A range of metathesis substrates was assembled from triplets of unsaturated building blocks. The approach involved the iterative attachment of a propagating and a terminating building block to a fluorous-tagged initiating building block. Metathesis cascade chemistry was used to "reprogram" the molecular scaffolds. Remarkably, in one case, a cyclopropanation reaction competed with the expected m...

The utilization of a monomer-on-monomer (MoM) intramolecular Mitsunobu cyclization reaction employing norbornenyl-tagged (Nb-tagged) reagents is reported for the synthesis of benzofused thiadiazepine-dioxides. Facile purification was achieved via ring-opening metathesis (ROM) polymerization initiated by one of three metathesis catalyst methods: (i) free metathesis catalyst, (ii) surface-initiat...

Light activation is a most desirable property for catalysis control. Among the many catalytic processes that may be activated by light, olefin metathesis stands out as both academically motivating and practically useful. Starting from early tungsten heterogeneous photoinitiated metathesis, up to modern ruthenium methods based on complex photoisomerisation or indirect photoactivation, this surve...

The use of olefin metathesis as a construction tool for multimetallic salen-based structures is described. The approach involves mono- and diallyl-functionalized metallosalen complexes that can be directly coupled by metathesis leading to dimetallic species or mixtures of linear and cyclic oligomers. The metathesis of bis-allyl Ni(salen) complexes has been studied in detail. At high concentrati...

A series of ruthenium olefin metathesis catalysts of the general structure (H(2)IMes)(PR(3))(Cl)(2)Ru=CHPh (H(2)IMes = 1,3-dimesityl-4,5-dihydroimidazol-2-ylidene) have been prepared; these complexes are readily accessible in two steps from commercially available (H(2)IMes)(PCy(3))(Cl)(2)Ru=CHPh. Their phosphine dissociation rate constants (k(1)), relative rates of phosphine reassociation, and ...