As industry looks towards more efficient and sustainable processes, the development of new methods to catalyze chemical reactions is an essential area of modern chemical research. In this work, activation of aryl compounds by coordination to a Ru complex leads to an increase in the reactivity of the arene species.The activation of styrene towards nucleophilic addition through ?6 binding to a ruthenium cyclopentadienyl (Cp) complex has been investigated. Initial work has shown the addition of a series of nucleophiles to the terminal carbon of a Ru bound styrene complex, [(?6-styrene)RuCp]PF6. A Diels Alder reaction on [(?6-styrene)RuCp]PF6 was also attempted, with good initial results.  In a third reaction, nucleophilic aromatic substitution (SNAr) was carried out upon unactivated aryl chlorides through ?6 binding to a Ru complex. [CpRu(chlorobenzene)]+ undergoes SNAr at room temperature.1This process is not catalytic, however, due to the extremely slow exchange of the bound arene. The reactions are currently stoichiometric in Ru but efforts are ongoing to achieve the reaction catalytically, through use of photolysis chemistry.1 Cambie, R. C.; Clark, G. R.; Coombe, S. L.; Coulson, S. A.; Rutledge, P. S.; Woodgate, P. D., J. Organomet. Chem., 1996  , 507, 1 � 21.

New approaches to the catalytic activation of arenes

248th National Meeting (2014)

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