Ethenolysis: A Green Catalytic Tool to Cleave Carbon-Carbon Double Bonds

Remarkable innovations have been made in the field of olefin metathesis due to the design and preparation of new catalysts. Ethenolysis, which is cross-metathesis with ethylene, represents one catalytic transformation that has been used with the purpose of cleaving internal carbon-carbon double bonds. The objectives were either the ring opening of cyclic olefins to produce dienes or the shortening of unsaturated hydrocarbon chains to degrade polymers or generate valuable shorter terminal olefins in a controlled manner. This Review summarizes several aspects of this reaction: the catalysts, their degradation in the presence of ethylene, some parameters driving their productivity, the side reactions, and the applications of ethenolysis in organic synthesis and in potential industrial applications.

Recent applications of ring-rearrangement metathesis in organic synthesis

Ring-rearrangement metathesis (RRM) involves multiple metathesis processes such as ring-opening metathesis (ROM)/ring-closing metathesis (RCM) in a one-pot operation to generate complex targets. RRM delivers complex frameworks that are difficult to assemble by conventional methods. The noteworthy point about this type of protocol is multi-bond formation and it is an atom economic process. In this review, we have covered literature that appeared during the last seven years (2008–2014).