Investigations of polymerization and metathesis reactions: Part I: Carbene reactions with polymerization and metathesis catalysts

Abstract

With a polymerization catalyst, a reduced Phillips catalyst and a Dolgoplosk metathesis catalyst (WCl 6/N 2CHCOOC 2H 5), well-known carbene ligand reactions such as cyclopropanation with alkenes and a Wittig-like reaction with ketones may be used as model reactions. For all these model reactions ethyl diazoacetate (DAAE) has been used as the carbene source. Whereas the reduced Phillips catalyst produced cyclopropanes as the main products, the metathesis catalyst WCl 6/DAAE gave dimers of the carbene ligand in good yield and only poor yields of cyclopropanes. No carbene complex reaction products could be found with the heterogeneous metathesis catalysts WO 3/SiO 2 and W(CO) 6/Al 2O 3 in both model reactions.