Origin of Reactivity Trends of an Elusive Metathesis Intermediate from NMR Chemical Shift Analysis of Surrogate Analogues.

Olefin metathesis has become an efficient tool in synthetic organic chemistry to build carbon-carbon bonds, thanks to the development of Grubbs- and Schrock-type catalysts. Olefin coordination, a key and often rate-determining elementary step for d 0 Schrock-type catalysts, has been rarely explored due to the lack of accessible relevant molecular analogues. Herein, we present a fully characterized surrogate of this key olefin-coordination intermediate, namely, a cationic d 0 tungsten oxo-methylidene complex bearing two N -heterocyclic carbene ligands─[WO(CH 2 )Cl(IMes) 2 ](OTf) ( 1 ) (IMes = 1,3-dimesitylimidazole-2-ylidene, OTf-triflate counteranion), resulting in a trigonal bipyramidal (TBP) geometry, along with its neutral octahedral analogue [WO(CH 2 )Cl 2 (IMes) 2 ] ( 2 )─and an isostructural oxo-methylidyne derivative [WO(CH)Cl(IMes) 2 ] ( 3 ). The analysis of their solid-state 13 C and 183 W MAS NMR signatures, along with computed 17 O NMR parameters, helps to correlate their electronic structures with NMR patterns and evidences the importance of the competition among the three equatorial ligands in the TBP complexes. Anchored on experimentally obtained NMR parameters for 1 , computational analysis of a series of olefin coordination intermediates highlights the interplay between σ- and π-donating ligands in modulating their stability and further paralleling their reactivity. NMR spectroscopy descriptors reveal the origin for the advantage of the dissymmetry in σ-donating abilities of ancillary ligands in Schrock-type catalysts: weak σ-donors avoid the orbital-competition with the oxo ligand upon formation of a TBP olefin-coordination intermediate, while stronger σ-donors compromise M≡O triple bonding and thus render olefin coordination step energy demanding.