Monoaurated vs. diaurated intermediates: causality or independence?

Cationic Gold(II) Complexes: Experimental and Theoretical Study

Gold(II) complexes are rare, and their application to the catalysis of chemical transformations is underexplored. The reason is their easy oxidation or reduction to more stable gold(III) or gold(I) complexes, respectively. We explored the thermodynamics of the formation of [Au^II (L)(X)]⁺ complexes (L=ligand, X=halogen) from the corresponding gold(III) precursors and investigated their stability and spectral properties in the IR and visible range in the gas phase. The results show that the best ancillary ligands L for stabilizing gaseous [Au^II (L)(X)]⁺ complexes are bidentate and tridentate ligands with nitrogen donor atoms. The electronic structure and spectral properties of the investigated gold(II) complexes were correlated with quantum chemical calculations. The results show that the molecular and electronic structure of the gold(II) complexes as well as their spectroscopic properties are very similar to those of analogous stable copper(II) complexes.

Towards Dual-Metal Catalyzed Hydroalkoxylation of Alkynes

Poly (vinyl ethers) are compounds with great value in the coating industry due to exhibiting properties such as high viscosity, soft adhesiveness, resistance to saponification and solubility in water and organic solvents. However, the main challenge in this field is the synthesis of vinyl ether monomers that can be synthetized by methodologies such as vinyl transfer, reduction of vinyl phosphate ether, isomerization, hydrogenation of acetylenic ethers, elimination, addition of alcohols to alkyne species etc. Nevertheless, the most successful strategy to access to vinyl ether derivatives is the addition of alcohols to alkynes catalyzed by transition metals such as molybdenum, tungsten, ruthenium, palladium, platinum, gold, silver, iridium and rhodium, where gold-NHC catalysts have shown the best results in vinyl ether synthesis. Recently, the hydrophenoxylation reaction was found to proceed through a digold-assisted process where the species that determine the rate of the reaction are PhO-[Au(IPr)] and alkyne-[Au(IPr)]. Later, the improvement of the hydrophenoxylation reaction by using a mixed combination of Cu-NHC and Au-NHC catalysts was also reported. DFT studies confirmed a cost-effective method for the hydrophenoxylation reaction and located the rate-determining step, which turned out to be quite sensitive to the sterical hindrance due to the NHC ligands.

Mechanistic Study of Pd/NHC-Catalyzed Sonogashira Reaction: Discovery of NHC-Ethynyl Coupling Process

The product of a revealed transformation-NHC-ethynyl coupling-was observed as a catalyst transformation pathway in the Sonogashira cross-coupling, catalyzed by Pd/NHC complexes. The 2-ethynylated azolium salt was isolated in individual form and fully characterized, including X-ray analysis. A number of possible intermediates of this transformation with common formulae (NHC)_n Pd(C₂ Ph) (n=1,2) were observed and subjected to collision-induced dissociation (CID) and infrared multiphoton dissociation (IRMPD) experiments to elucidate their structure. Measured bond dissociation energies (BDEs) and IRMPD spectra were in an excellent agreement with quantum calculations for coupling product π-complexes with Pd⁰ . Molecular dynamics simulations confirmed the observed multiple CID fragmentation pathways. An unconventional methodology to study catalyst evolution suggests the reported transformation to be considered in the development of new catalytic systems for alkyne functionalization reactions.

Identifying reactive intermediates by mass spectrometry

Development of new reactions requires finding and understanding of novel reaction pathways. In challenging reactions such as C-H activations, these pathways often involve highly reactive intermediates which are the key to our understanding, but difficult to study. Mass spectrometry has a unique sensitivity for detecting low abundant charged species; therefore it is increasingly used for detection of such intermediates in metal catalysed- and organometallic reactions. This perspective shows recent developments in the field of mass spectrometric research of reaction mechanisms with a special focus on going beyond mass-detection. Chapters discuss the advantages of collision-induced dissociation, ion mobility and ion spectroscopy for characterization of structures of the detected intermediates. In addition, we discuss the relationship between the condensed phase chemistry and mass spectrometric detection of species from solution.

Gold-Catalyzed Intermolecular Alkyne Hydrofunctionalizations—Mechanistic Insights

An overview of the current state of mechanistic understanding of gold-catalyzed intermolecular alkyne hydrofunctionalization reactions is presented. Moving from the analysis of the main features of the by-now-generally accepted reaction mechanism, studies and evidences pointing out the mechanistic peculiarities of these reactions using different nucleophiles HNu that add to the alkyne triple bond are presented and discussed. The effects of the nature of the employed alkyne substrate and of the gold catalyst (employed ligands, counteranions, gold oxidation state), of additional additives and of the reaction conditions are also considered. Aim of this work is to provide the reader with a detailed mechanistic knowledge of this important reaction class, which will be invaluable for rapidly developing and optimizing synthetic protocols involving a gold-catalyzed alkyne hydrofunctionalization as a reaction step.