The forming and breaking of metal-carbon bonds by facile oxidative addition/reductive elimination processes is the cornerstone of numerous transition metal-catalysed transformations. In contrast, such chemistry is extremely rare for main group metal systems. As part of an ongoing collaboration between the groups of Professors Cameron Jones (Monash University) and Simon Aldridge (Oxford University), the first stable group 13 metal(II) radicals (see May issue, p. 13) have been shown to react with dimethylbutadiene, via oxidative M-C bond formations, to give metallo-butenediyl complexes (see figure). These systems can undergo subsequent reductive elimination under mild conditions, yielding B-C bonded products (Protchenko A.V., Dange D., Blake M.P., Schwarz A.D., Jones C, Mountford P., Aldridge S. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 10902-5).
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