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Updated: Jun 13, 2026

Isolating Free Carbenes, their Mixed Dimers and Organic Radicals
Published on: April 19, 2019
Gold carbenes via 1,2-dialkoxycyclopropane ring-opening: a mass spectrometric and DFT study of the reaction pathways
Laurent Batiste1, Alexey Fedorov, Peter Chen
1Laboratorium für Organische Chemie, ETH Zürich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 10, CH-8093, Switzerland.
Abstract:
We report experimental and computational evidence that cationic N-heterocyclic carbene gold complexes with electron-rich cyclopropanes rearrange to produce Fischer gold carbene complexes in the gas phase, in analogy to long-known condensed-phase rearrangements of protonated cyclopropanes. Our results help to generalize the relationship between Lewis-acidic metal complexes of cyclopropanes, metallacyclobutanes and metal carbenes.
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