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Rapid Olefin Cyclopropanation Catalyzed by a Bioinspired Cobalt Complex
Liming Tan1, Keyang Wu1, Gang Li1
1Department Chemistry and Biochemistry, Utah State University, 0300 Old Main Hill, 84322, Logan, Utah, USA.
Abstract:
Cyclopropanes are important structural motifs found in many natural products and are essential to the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. Here, we report a bioinspired cobalt catalyst that catalyzes the intermolecular cyclopropanation of various terminal olefins using ethyl diazoacetate (EDA) in high efficiency. This cobalt catalytic system is operationally simple under very mild conditions, enabling the synthesis of cyclopropane products with remarkable yields in short reaction time. Preliminary mechanistic studies suggest the presence of cobalt carbene radical species during the reaction.
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