Olefin Metathesis in Confinement: Towards Covalent Organic Framework Scaffolds for Increased Macrocyclization Selectivity

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) offer vast structural and chemical diversity enabling a wide and growing range of applications. While COFs are well-established as homogeneous catalysts, so far, their high and ordered porosity has scarcely been utilized to its full potential when it comes to spatially confined reactions in COF pores to alter the outcome of reactions. Here, we present a highly porous and crystalline, large-pore COF as catalytic support in diene ring-closing metathesis reactions, leading to increased macrocylization selectivity. COF pore-wall modification by immobilization of a Grubbs-Hoveyda-type catalyst via a mild silylation reaction provides a molecularly precise heterogeneous metathesis catalyst. An increased macro(mono)cyclization (MMC) selectivity over oligomerization (O) for the heterogeneous COF-catalyst (MMC:O = 1.30) of up to 44% compared to the homogeneous catalyst (MMC:O = 0.90) was observed along with a substrate-size dependency in selectivity, pointing to diffusion limitations induced by the pore confinement.

Synthesis of highly stable dual-site immobilized ruthenium olefin metathesis catalyst without ru leaching

The tri-block copolymer is used as a carrier to simultaneously immobilize the N-heterocyclic and benzylidene ligands precursor of the Ru-based catalyst to form a dual-site immobilized catalyst. The dual-site immobilized catalyst can catalyze ring-opening metathesis polymerization, ring-closing metathesis and self-metathesis. The dual-site immobilized catalyst shows good heterogeneity in dichloromethane, which simplifies the purification of product and recovery of catalyst. The dual-site immobilized catalyst exhibits excellent activity and recycling performance. The excellent recyclability can be attributed to the capture of ruthenium by the excess ligands precursor on carrier. Importantly, ruthenium residues are not detected in product.

Tandem Olefin Metathesis/α-Ketohydroxylation Revisited

EWG-activated and polar quaternary ammonium salt-tagged ruthenium metathesis catalysts have been applied in a two-step one-pot metathesis-oxidation process leading to functionalized α-hydroxyketones (acyloins). In this assisted tandem process, the metathesis catalyst is used first to promote ring-closing metathesis (RCM) and cross-metathesis (CM) steps, then upon the action of Oxone™ converts into an oxidation catalyst able to transform the newly formed olefinic product into acyloin under mild conditions.

Highly active alkyne metathesis catalysts operating under open air condition

Alkyne metathesis represents a rapidly emerging synthetic method that has shown great potential in small molecule and polymer synthesis. However, its practical use has been impeded by the limited availability of user-friendly catalysts and their generally high moisture/air sensitivity. Herein, we report an alkyne metathesis catalyst system that can operate under open-air conditions with a broad substrate scope and excellent yields. These catalysts are composed of simple multidentate tris(2-hydroxyphenyl)methane ligands, which can be easily prepared in multi-gram scale. The catalyst substituted with electron withdrawing cyano groups exhibits the highest activity at room temperature with excellent functional group tolerance (-OH, -CHO, -NO2, pyridyl). More importantly, the catalyst provides excellent yields (typically >90%) in open air, comparable to those operating under argon. When dispersed in paraffin wax, the active catalyst can be stored on a benchtop under ambient conditions without any decrease in activity for one day (retain 88% after 3 days). This work opens many possibilities for developing highly active user-friendly alkyne metathesis catalysts that can function in open air.

Decomposition of Ruthenium Olefin Metathesis Catalyst

Ruthenium olefin metathesis catalysts are one of the most commonly used class of catalysts. There are multiple reviews on their uses in various branches of chemistry and other sciences but a detailed review of their decomposition is missing, despite a large number of recent and important advances in this field. In particular, in the last five years several new mechanism of decomposition, both olefin-driven as well as induced by external agents, have been suggested and used to explain differences in the decomposition rates and the metathesis activities of both standard, N-heterocyclic carbene-based systems and the recently developed cyclic alkyl amino carbene-containing complexes. Here we present a review which explores the last 30 years of the decomposition studied on ruthenium olefin metathesis catalyst driven by both intrinsic features of such catalysts as well as external chemicals.