Treatment of an gamma-acyloxy-alpha,beta-unsaturated ketone with bis(iodozincio)methane leads to a novel tandem reaction consisting of three steps: (1) 1,4-addition of the dizinc reagent to the enone, which affords the corresponding zinc enolate of the beta-zinciomethylated ketone; (2) intramolecular nucleophilic attack by the enolate on the ester group; and (3) Grob-type fragmentation of the adduct, accompanied by elimination of the zinc alkoxide of allyl alcohol. The overall reaction gives 1,3-diketones efficiently.

About 40 years have passed since methylene dizinc reagent was discovered as a substitute for Wittig reagent. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have been performed to understand the reaction pathways of methylenation of carbonyl compounds with bis(iodozincio)methane. The present computational/theoretical study concluded that the methylenation reaction with gem-dizinc reagent proceeds as a two-step reaction, that is, methylene addition (RDS) and olefination. In the first step, the nucleophilic attack of the CH2 group enhanced by two Zn proceeds under the assistance of the electrophilic activation of the carbonyl group with the Zn atom. In the second step, the olefination is facilitated by both Zn atoms of the gem-dizinc reagent without an electron transfer process.

1,4-Addition of bis(iodozincio)methane to simple α,β-unsaturated ketones does not proceed well; the reaction is slightly endothermic according to DFT calculations. In the presence of chlorotrimethylsilane, the reaction proceeded efficiently to afford a silyl enol ether of β-zinciomethyl ketone. The C--Zn bond of the silyl enol ether could be used in a cross-coupling reaction to form another C--C bond in a one-pot reaction. In contrast, 1,4-addition of the dizinc reagent to enones carrying an acyloxy group proceeded very efficiently without any additive. In this case, the product was a 1,3-diketone, which was generated in a novel tandem reaction. A theoretical/computational study indicates that the whole reaction pathway is exothermic, and that two zinc atoms of bis(iodozincio)methane accelerate each step cooperatively as effective Lewis acids.