Single-Site Ruthenium Metathesis Catalysts

This paper presents an up-to-date investigation relating to the design and synthesis of the recently disclosed single-site ruthenium carbene metathesis catalysts. Created as a convenient counterpart of the earlier tungsten and molybdenum carbene catalysts, these novel ruthenium carbene complexes bear specific heterocyclic ligands and display comparable activity and selectivity in metathesis reactions, as well as good tolerance toward organic functionalities, air and moisture. Due to their unique properties, they can be successfully applied in numerous organic and polymer syntheses involving cross-metathesis, ring-opening and ring-closing metatheses, as well as ring-opening metathesis polymerisation. This paper updates our previous review on metathesis reactions published in this Journal last year.