GaCl₃-Catalyzed Ring-Opening Carbonyl–Olefin Metathesis

Abstract

The development of a Lewis acid-catalyzed ring-opening cross-metathesis reaction which enables selective access to acyclic, unsaturated ketones as the carbonyl-olefin metathesis products is described. While catalytic amounts of FeCl₃ were previously identified as optimal to catalyze ring-closing metathesis reactions, the complementary ring-opening metathesis between cyclic alkenes and carbonyl functionalities relies on GaCl₃ as the superior Lewis acid catalyst.