The reaction of
![](/images/gifchars/alpha.gif)
,
![](/images/gifchars/beta2.gif)
-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, a palladium(0) complex, and Lewis acids ledto the formation of a new class of complexes showing a wide variety of structures with
2-type and
3-typecoordination of the carbonyl compounds. The reaction of Pd(PhCH=CHCOCH
3)(PPh
3)
2 with BF
3·OEt
2 orB(C
6F
5)
3 quantitatively gave palladium complexes
1a,
b having BX
3-coordinated
2-enonepalladium structure,as revealed by X-ray structure analysis of the B(C
6F
5)
3 adduct
1b. On the other hand, the reaction of Pd(PhCH=CHCHO)(PPh
3)
2 with BF
3·OEt
2 or B(C
6F
5)
3 gave distorted zwitterionic
3-allylpalladium complexes
3a,
b, where the Pd-carbonyl carbon distance in
3a (2.413(4) Å) is much shorter than that (2.96(1) Å) in
1b.The values of the P-P coupling constant and
13C chemical shift for carbonyl carbon are useful criteria forpredicting how the
3-coordination mode contributes to the structure of the enone-palladium-Lewis acidsystem. Molecular orbital calculations on the series of model complexes suggest that orbital overlap in thehighest occupied molecular orbital between the palladium and carbonyl carbon is enlarged by coordination ofthe Lewis acid to the carbonyl group. Palladium-catalyzed conjugate addition of R-M (R-M = AlMe
3, AlEt
3,ZnEt
2) and its plausible reaction path are also reported.