Highly efficient and time economical purification of olefin metathesis products from metal residues using an isocyanide scavenger

Abstract

A sustainable protocol of olefin metathesis in non-degassed, undistilled ethyl acetate under air with commercially available self-scavenging ruthenium catalysts is described. Furthermore, a time economical, cost-effective and scalable method of removal of ruthenium residues is presented. Treatment of post-reaction mixtures with an isocyanide scavenger and then with acid followed by a simple filtration is shown to yield OM products with ruthenium contamination below 5 ppm even in highly challenging cases. Finally, a telescope RCM/Suzuki–Miyaura sequence with a rapid and efficient purification protocol for simultaneous removal of Ru and Pd residues from solution is described.