A new family of halogen-chelated Hoveyda-Grubbs-type metathesis catalysts

Abstract

Coordination, not insertion: New ruthenium benzylidenes with a chelating halogen atom were easily prepared and showed excellent stability and activity as metathesis catalysts (see figure). Structure-activity studies reveal that strength of the ruthenium-halogen interaction can be tuned across a wide range to set up a family of latent to active catalysts.