Catalytic ruthenium vinyl carbenes. Properties, reactivity and applications in tandem reactions

Abstract

The properties of metal carbenes have attracted the interest of the scientific community for decades. Their role in catalytic transformations such as olefin and enyne metathesis, cyclopropanation or C-H bond functionalization has significantly broadened the arsenal of organic synthetic operations. Importantly, these chemical species have also proved to be very versatile in the development of tandem reactions that allow to generate high molecular complexity from simple starting materials. In this thesis, we report our findings on the development of several tandem reactions based on the in situ generation of ruthenium vinyl carbenes through carbene/alkyne metathesis. Special attention has been paid to understand how electronic and geometric factors in ruthenium vinyl carbenes affect to the chemo- and stereoselectivity of the reactions discussed.