Transformations of Cyclic Olefins Mediated by Tungsten Nitrosyl Complexes

Abstract

This report describes investigations that have elucidated the nature, extent, and mechanism of the cyclic-olefin oligomerization effected by a series of tungsten precatalysts, with particular focus on Cp*W(NO)(CH2CMe3)2 (1) and Cp*W(NO)(CH2SiMe3)(η2-CPhCH2) (2). Upon thermolysis, these precatalysts oligomerize simple cyclic olefins, from cyclopentene to cyclooctene, into ring-retaining oligomers as high as dodecamers (depending on the substrate) with remaining sites of unsaturation. Precatalyst initiation involves the coupling of one equivalent of the substrate with the reactive 16e intermediate thermally generated by the precatalyst (i.e., an alkylidene by 1 or an η2-alkyne complex by 2), followed by rearrangement of the coupled ligand in the metal’s coordination sphere either to an olefin or to a diene (with concomitant loss of two hydrogen atoms). The rearranged ligand is displaced from the metal center as two equivalents of substrate coordinate to form a putative bis-olefin complex, Cp*W(NO)(cyclic ol...