Angewandte
Communications
Chemie
Hydrosilylation of Alkynes
Highly Chemo-, Regio-, and Stereoselective Cobalt-Catalyzed
Markovnikov Hydrosilylation of Alkynes
Abstract: A highly chemo-, regio- and stereoselective cobalt-
catalyzed Markovnikov hydrosilylation of alkynes was devel-
oped. Various functionalized groups, such as halides, free
alcohols, free aniline, ketones, esters, amides, and nitriles are
tolerated, which may lead to further applications and late-stage
derivatizations. To date, this is the most efficient cobalt catalytic
system (TOF = 65520 hÀ1; TOF = turnover frequency) for
hydrosilylation of alkynes. The Hiyama–Denmark cross-
coupling reactions of vinylsilanes with aryl iodides underwent
smoothly to afford 1,1-diarylethenes. A unique regioselectivity-
controllable hydrosilylation/hydroboration reaction of alkynes
was also described.
of terminal alkynes.[14] Deng and co-workers demonstrated
that a three-coordinate carbene–phosphane cobalt complex
showed highly catalytic b-selectivity in the hydrosilylation of
terminal alkynes.[15] The use of cobalt complexes for promot-
ing the efficient, general and highly a-regioselective hydro-
silylation of alkynes has not been described previously. Here,
we developed a highly chemo-, regio-, and stereoselective
cobalt-catalyzed hydrosilylation of terminal and internal
alkynes to a-vinyl silanes (Scheme 1).
T
he development of efficient, selective, economic, and
environmentally benign catalysts[1] for valuable chemicals is
highly desirable and particularly beneficial for exploring new
transformations. Vinylsilanes are highly attractive intermedi-
ates because of versatile applications in organic synthesis and
materials science.[2] Hydrosilylation of alkynes with silanes is
one of the most straightforward and atom-economical
strategies.[3] However, only a few examples using noble
transition-metal catalysts, such as ruthenium,[4] have been
used for general Markovnikov-type hydrosilylation of
alkynes. Because of good tolerance to various functional
groups, as well as the lower costs and toxicity of cobalt
catalysts, rapid progress has been made in cobalt-catalyzed
reactions during the last two decades.[5] Recently, the research
groups of Chirik,[6] Hanson,[7] Holland,[8] Deng,[9] and
Huang[10] and our group[11] reported low-valent cobalt com-
plexes that efficiently catalyze hydrogenation, hydrosilyla-
tion, hydroboration, and isomerization of unsaturated
carbon–carbon double bonds. However, the cobalt-catalyzed
hydrosilylation of terminal alkynes is still challenging.[12]
Isobe and co-workers reported that a cobalt carbonyl
complex promoted the hydrosilylation reaction of function-
alized terminal alkynes with silanes to afford vinylsilanes,
however, with 1.2/1 to 6.7/1 regioselectivities.[13] Butenschçn
and co-workers found that the cyclopentadienylcobalt com-
plex with a pendant phosphane donor catalyzed the hydro-
silylation of internal alkynes with high syn-selectivity, how-
ever, no regioselectivity was observed in the hydrosilylation
Scheme 1. Cobalt complexes for catalytic hydrosilylation of terminal
alkynes
A simple phenylacetylene was chosen as a model sub-
strate and reacted with Ph2SiH2. The bench-stable oxazoline
iminopyridine (OIP) cobalt complex L1·CoCl2 was selected as
a precatalyst in which the OIP ligand could be easily
synthesized from substituted 2-bromopyridines and oxazo-
lines.[16] The reaction was carried out in the presence of
2 mol% cobalt precatalyst L1a·CoCl2 and 6 mol% NaBHEt3
as a reductant in a solution of tetrahydrofuran (THF) at room
temperature to afford a mixture of branched- and linear-
selective products in 18% yield with a ratio of 67:33 (see
entry 1 in Table 1). A significant increase in the yield as well
as in the regioselectivity was observed when a smaller benzyl
group was used on the oxazoline, which gave rise to vinyl-
silane in 83% yield with 87/13 regioselective ratio (rr;
entries 1–3). When the substitutent was further reduced in
size to a methyl group, the yield and regioselectivity slightly
decreased (entry 4). We were pleased to find that the
regioselectivities were improved to 94:6 using less steric
bulky 2,6-dimethyl or 2,4-dimethyl aniline-derived ligands
(entries 5 and 6). Using bromide or iodide as an anion instead
of chloride, a regioselectivity of upto 97:3 was observed
(entries 7 and 8). A variety of reductants, as well as various
solvents and silianes have also been investigated, but no
further improvement was observed (see the Supporting
Information). Control experiments were conducted and
showed cobalt complexes with well-defined ligands, such as
pyridine bisoxazoline (Pybox), bisiminopyridine (BIP), and
iminopyridine (IP), that promoted the reactions, however,
with slightly lower regioselectivities (entries 9–11).
[*] J. Guo, Prof. Z. Lu
Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University
Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058 (China)
E-mail: luzhan@zju.edu.cn
Supporting information and the ORCID identification number(s) for
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 1 – 5
ꢀ 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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