Notes Reaction of Ethyl Diazoacetate with Alkyl-Aromatic Substrates: Influence of the Tp x Cu Catalyst in the Addition versus Insertion Chemoselectivity (Tp x ) Homoscorpionate) M. Esther Morilla, † M. Mar Dı ´az-Requejo, † Toma ´ s R. Belderrain, † M. Carmen Nicasio, † Swiatoslaw Trofimenko, ‡ and Pedro J. Pe ´rez* ,† Departamento de Quı ´mica y Ciencia de los Materiales, Universidad de Huelva, Campus de El Carmen, E-21007 Huelva, Spain, and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716 Received September 5, 2003 Summary: The complexes Tp Br3 Cu(NCMe) (1) and Tp Ms Cu (2) catalyze the addition of the :CHCO 2 Et unit (generated from N 2 CHCO 2 Et, EDA) to benzene to give a cycloheptatriene ring, in analogy with the Bu ¨ chner reaction. When alkyl groups are attached to the aromatic rings, the selectivity of the reaction can be oriented toward addition or, alternatively, to the insertion into an alkyl C-H bond by using 1 or 2, respectively. Introduction The reaction of benzene and ethyl diazoacetate under thermal or photochemical conditions was reported by Bu ¨ chner almost a century ago. 1 The mixture of cyclo- heptatrienes obtained in that way was formed upon the formal addition of a carbene group to a double bond of benzene, followed by the ring expansion of the cyclo- propane intermediate. In 1981, Noels and co-workers 2 reported the use of Rh 2 (OOCCF 3 ) 4 to efficiently catalyze this reaction, affording one major isomer in very high yield. Later, Callot et al. 3 showed using porphyrin- containing rhodium catalysts that several methyl- aromatic substrates could undergo a competition be- tween the addition to the double bond (leading to cycloheptatrienes) and the insertion into an sp 3 C-H bond of the methyl group. In recent years, Davies and co-workers have demonstrated 4 with chiral rhodium catalysts that when methylene groups are attached to the benzene rings, these benzylic sites are preferred for the insertion reaction, using phenyl- or vinyl-diazo- cetates as the carbene source. Although copper-based catalysts have been reported to induce this transforma- tion for intramolecular processes, 1 to our knowledge there are no reports of the use of this metal for the intermolecular version of such transformation, at least with noticeable degrees of conversion. We have recently described 5,6 the use of the complexes Tp Br3 Cu(NCMe) (1) and Tp Ms Cu (2) as catalysts for the insertion of ethyl diazoacetate (EDA) into the C-H bonds of hydrocarbons and ethers. In this contribution we present the results obtained with those complexes as the catalysts for the reaction of EDA with aromatic substrates. Results and Discussion As a first test, we have studied the reaction of EDA and benzene in the presence of 1, an experiment that led to a 60% conversion (based in EDA) of the cyclohep- tatriene product (eq 1). This result has supposed the first example of a copper-induced transformation of this * Corresponding author. Fax: +34 959 019942, Tel: +34 959 019956. E-mail: perez@dqcm.uhu.es. † Universidad de Huelva. ‡ University of Delaware. (1) (a) Doyle, M. P.; McKervey, A.; Tao, Y., M. Modern Catalytic Methods for Organic Synthesis with Diazo Compounds; John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1998. For free-radical and photochemical examples see: (b) Knowles, H. S.; Hunt, K.; Parsons, A. Tetrahedron Lett. 2000, 41, 7121. (c) Wydila, J.; Thornton, E. R. Tetrahedron Lett. 1983, 24, 233. (d) Likhotvorik, I.; Zhu, Z.; Tae, E. L.; Tippmann, E.; Hill, B. T.; Platz, M. S. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2001, 123, 6061. (2) (a) Anciaux, A. J.; Demonceau, A.; Noels, A. F.; Hubert, A. J.; Petiniot, N.; Teyssie, P. H. J. Chem. Soc., Chem. Commun. 1980, 765. (b) Anciaux, A. J.; Demonceau, A.; Noels, A. F.; Hubert, A. J.; Warin, R.; Teyssie, P. H. J. Org. Chem. 1981, 46, 873. (3) Callot, H. J.; Metz, F. Nov. J. Chem. 1985, 9, 167. (4) (a) Davies, H. M. L.; Jin, Q. Tetrahedron Asymmetry 2003, 14, 941. (b) Davies, H. M. L.; Jin, Q.; Ren, P.; Kovalevsky, A. Y. J. Org. Chem. 2002, 67, 4165. (5) Caballero, A.; Dı ´az-Requejo, M. M.; Belderrain, T. R.; Nicasio, M. C.; Trofimenko, S.; Pe ´rez, P. J. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2003, 125, 1446. (6) Dı ´az-Requejo, M. M.; Belderrain, T. R.; Nicasio, M. C.; Trofi- menko, S.; Pe ´rez, P. J. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2002, 124, 896. 293 Organometallics 2004, 23, 293-295 10.1021/om034156u CCC: $27.50 © 2004 American Chemical Society Publication on Web 12/05/2003