Performic acid combined with an iron catalyst cleaved a variety of catechols allowing efficient lignin upgrading into high value products.

New ruthenium complexes featuring two unsymmetrical NHCs proved to be highly selective in macrocyclic RCM performed in green solvents at low dilution.

The concept of a synergistic double catalytic kinetic resolution (DoCKR) as described in this article was successfully applied to racemic acyclic anti-1,3-diols, a common motif in natural products. This process takes advantage of an additive Horeau amplification involving two successive enantioselective organocatalytic acylation reactions, and leads to diesters and recovered diols with high enantiopurities. It was first developed with C2 -symmetrical diols and then further extended to non-C2 -symmetrical anti diols to prepare useful chiral building blocks. The protocol is highly practical as it only requires 1 mol % of a commercially available organocatalyst and leads to easily separable products. This procedure was applied to the shortest reported total synthesis of (+)-cryptocaryalactone, a natural product with anti-germinative activity.

A practical and cost-effective ruthenium-catalyzed self-metathesis of non-refined methyl oleate (85%) derived from very high oleic sunflower oils was demonstrated at pilot scale using a robust and kg-scale commercially available SIPr-M71 pre-catalyst. The simple addition of 1 wt% bleaching earths (Tonsil 110FF) to a thermally pretreated oil could efficiently prevent catalyst deactivation. Remarkably, without the need for filtration, the catalytic system was able to achieve a turnover number (TON) of more than 744 000 at a catalyst loading of only 1 ppm. At large scale (up to 200 kg), the equilibrium of the self-metathesis reaction was reached within 1 hour at 50 degrees C under neat conditions at a very low 5 ppm catalyst loading to produce the expected primary metathesis products (PMP), that is, 9-octadecene and dimethyl-9-octadecenoate, with a productive TON of 94900.

Original ruthenium supported ionic liquid phase (SILP) catalysts based on alginates as supports were developed for olefin metathesis reactions. The marine biopolymer, which fulfills most of the requisite properties for a support such as widespread abundance, insolubility in the majority of organic solvents, a high affinity for ionic liquids, high chemical stability, biodegradability, low cost, and easy processing, was impregnated by [bmim][PF6 ] containing an ionically tagged ruthenium catalyst. These biosourced catalysts show promising performances in ring-closing metathesis (RCM) and cross-metathesis (CM) reactions, with a high level of recyclability and reusability combined with a good reactivity.

Olefin metathesis is a powerful catalytic reaction that has a huge potential in the pharmaceutical, polymer and specialty chemicals industries. Cost-effective industrial applications require large-scale availability of catalyst precursors which combine high activity, high selectivity and long life-time. Among the known numerous families of olefin metathesis catalysts, the Umicore M7-catalyst family represents a novel class of Hoveyda-type complexes showing excellent chemical stabilities and modular activity profiles. Relevant aspects related to their industrial synthesis as well as their catalytic performance in valuable olefin metathesis transformations are overviewed here.

We described the efficient preparation of (E)-(2-arylvinyl)boronates from allylbenzene derivatives on the basis of an isomerization/cross-metathesis sequence catalyzed by a modified Hoveyda-Grubbs catalyst. The implementation of the experimental procedure was simple and compatible with a large variety of substrates. This methodology provides a new chemical transformation not described to date. Allyl-substituted aromatics can thus be converted into diversely functionalized compounds, such as (E)-stilbene derivatives or (E)-vinyl azides, in only two steps.

An unexpected cationic bis-N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) benzylidene ether based ruthenium complex (2 a) was prepared through the double incorporation of an unsymmetrical unsaturated N-heterocyclic carbene (U2 -NHC) ligand that bore an N-substituted cyclododecyl side chain. The isolation and full characterization (including X-ray diffraction studies) of key synthetic intermediates along with theoretical calculations allowed us to understand the mechanism of the overall cationization process. Finally, the newly developed complex 2 a displayed interesting latent behavior during ring-closing metathesis, which could be "switched on" under acidic conditions.

A library of thirteen different commercially available Ru-based catalysts was evaluated in valuable metathesis reactions for the production of fragrance and bioactive molecule precursors. Rigorous library screening clearly illustrated the different catalytic behaviour of the catalyst selection and highlighted its significant advantage to provide efficiency in specific metathesis applications. Interestingly, this strategy offered substantial improvement over the state of the art, with the efficient synthesis of the macrocyclic Exaltolide 2 at low catalyst loading and dilution conditions.

Synergic effects between ancillary N-heterocyclic carbenes [(1,3-bis(2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)-1,3-imidazoline-2-ylidene or 1,3-bis(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)-1,3-imidazoline-2-ylidene] and chelating benzylidene ether ligands were investigated by studying initiation rates and kinetic profiles of Hoveyda-Grubbs (HG) type Ru complexes. A newly designed Ru-benzylidene-oxazinone precatalyst 4 was compared with Grela and Blechert complexes bearing modified isopropyloxy chelating leaving groups and with the standard HG complex to understand how the ancillary and the leaving ligands interact and influence the catalytic activity.

In this study, a new pyridinium-tagged Ru complex was designed and anchored onto sulfonated silica, thereby forming a robust and highly active supported olefin-metathesis pre-catalyst for applications under batch and continuous-flow conditions. The involvement of an oxazine-benzylidene ligand allowed the reactivity of the formed Ru pre-catalyst to be efficiently controlled through both steric and electronic activation. The oxazine scaffold facilitated the introduction of the pyridinium tag, thereby affording the corresponding cationic pre-catalyst in good yield. Excellent activities in ring-closing (RCM), cross (CM), and enyne metathesis were observed with only 0.5 mol % loading of the pre-catalyst. When this powerful pre-catalyst was immobilized onto a silica-based cationic-exchange resin, a versatile catalytically active material for batch reactions was generated that also served as fixed-bed material for flow reactors. This system could be reused at 1 mol % loading to afford metathesis products in high purity with very low ruthenium contamination under batch conditions (below 5 ppm). Scavenging procedures for both batch and flow processes were conducted, which led to a lowering of the ruthenium content to as little as one tenth of the original values.

Dihydromyrcenol is used as a hydrated masked form of citronellene in olefin cross-metathesis reactions in order to solve the selectivity problem that results from the presence of two double bonds in many terpenes. Several ruthenium catalysts are evaluated, with the best, M71-SIPr, utilized in the cross-metathesis of dihydromyrcenol with various olefins affording the expected products in good yields. It is shown that the masked double bond can be regenerated via an acid-catalyzed elimination reaction and the product is then subjected to a further cross-metathesis reaction with a second olefin.

Continuous flow homogeneous alkene metathesis using a supported ionic liquid phase (SILP) catalyst with CO2 as a transport vector allows the self-metathesis of methyl oleate with only a slight loss of activity for at least 10 h; cross-metathesis of dimethyl maleate with methyl oleate ceases after 3 h, but the catalyst remains active for methyl oleate metathesis. The reasons for this unusual behaviour are explored and a practical system for the cross-metathesis of methyl oleate with dimethyl maleate, under batch conditions, is described.

Ru-based olefin metathesis complexes have been widely studied during the last twenty years with the discovery of various robust and efficient catalysts for this powerful synthetic transformation. However, complexes enabling to combine high activity, stability and recyclability still need to be quested. This article reports a short overview of several strategies concerning the Hoveyda-Grubbs boomerang type complexes devoted to finding an optimal compromise between these antinomic properties (e.g. the enhancement of catalyst activity and its recovery), leading in some cases to minimize both the catalyst loading and the ruthenium contamination in the metathesis products.

The catalytic activity of four aminocarbonyl group containing ‘boomerang’-type ring-closing metathesis catalysts have been studied for ten-membered lactone and compared well with the Grubbs I and II as well as the Hoveyda-Grubbs catalysts. The activity was found to be superior to the above three ring-closing metathesis catalysts and suggesting novel stereoselective total syntheses of herbarumin I and stagonolide A.

Structural modifications around 8-HETE (8-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid), a natural agonist of the PPAR (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor) nuclear receptors have led previously to the identification of a promising analog, the quinoline S 70655. Series of novel quinoline or benzoquinoline derivatives were designed through the modification of this lead. Variations of the nature of the aromatic core and of the side chains were carried out. The SAR studies indicated the high sensitivity of the upper acid chain to modifications as well as the strong effect of the length and size of the lipophilic side chain. They afforded several new promising PPARalpha/gamma dual agonists with a high PPARalpha activity in vitro.

Seven novel Hoveyda–Grubbs precatalysts bearing an aminosulfonyl function are reported. Kinetic studies indicate an activity enhancement compared to Hoveyda’s precatalyst. A selection of these catalysts was investigated with various substrates in ring-closing metathesis of dienes or enynes and cross metathesis. The results demonstrate that these catalysts show a good tolerance to various chemical functions.