As depicted in the scheme, the alkylidenamido complex
1, a
N-rhenaimine, reacts with ketenes to afford the
-lactams
2-4, which possess a {Re(CO)
3(bpy)} fragment as substituent at nitrogen. Clean demetalations using HOTf or MeOTf yield the free
-lactams or
N-methyl-
-lactams along with [Re(OTf)(CO)
3(bpy)]. DFT calculations help to rationalize why the reaction is faster than those of non transition metal N-substituted imines.