A highly efficient method for the synthesis of fluorenones through a palladium-catalyzed intramolecular oxidative coupling reaction via dual CH activations is reported. In this reaction, substituted fluorenones were obtained in moderate to high yields from diphenylacetic acid and its derivatives as substrates. The carboxylate, as a removable directing group, plays an important role in the dual CH activations of the substrate. The current method provides an efficient synthetic route for producing a variety of substituted fluorenones under mild reaction conditions.

A cationic ruthenium carbyne complex was prepared and was found to initiate olefin metathesis reactions with good activities, which throws a new light on the design of a new type of ruthenium catalyst for RCM reactions. More importantly, no double bond isomerized by-product was observed even at elevated temperatures in reactions catalyzed by the new carbyne complex. A mechanism involving the in situ conversion of the ruthenium carbyne to a ruthenium carbene complex via addition of an iodide to the carbyne carbon was also proposed.

A [{RhCl(cod)}₂]/CCl₃COOH system was developed for the oxidative coupling of non-chelate-assisted arenes with olefins in the presence of catalytic amounts of Cu(OAc)₂⋅H₂O as a co-oxidant and oxygen as the terminal oxidant. The acid was an indispensable component in this system and played a very important role in the coupling reaction. This catalytic system was applied to the direct oxidative coupling of a series of arenes and olefins and the corresponding products were afforded in high yields with special chemo- and regioselectivity. This reaction provides an atom-efficient route to vinylarenes, which are widely used in various fine chemicals.

A ferrocene-tagged ruthenium carbene 15 that can be reversibly immobilized in an ionic liquid (IL) via the controlled oxidation and reduction of a ferrocene tag was prepared. This offers a new strategy which uses redox chemistry to control immobilization and to recycle both the catalyst and the IL. In this experiment, 11 recycles were performed for the ring-closing metathesis (RCM) of a substrate using 16 as the catalyst in an ionic liquid (IL). More importantly, after the reaction was completed, the ruthenium catalyst was easily separated from the supporting IL by just adding decamethylferrocene (DMFc) to reduce the cationic ferrocene and then extracting it with benzene. Thus, this recycle system offers an easy way to recycle both the ruthenium catalyst and the IL.