“…Although the formation of metal–vinylidene species via alkyne–vinylidene rearrangement has been regarded as a key step in Ru(II)-induced alkyne transformations, a number of our synthetic studies revealed that Ru(II) can also activate alkynes via “non-vinylidene” pathways [ 31 , 32 ]. With the aim to gain control on the modes of alkyne activation, we initiated research activities on probing and isolating intermediates and products from the reactions between functionalized alkynes and a variety of Fe(II), Ru(II) and Os(II) complexes [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. In 2015, we reported the synthesis of metallafuran complexes in the form of [M(bpy) 2 (C^O)] + from the reactions between cis -[M(bpy) 2 Cl 2 ] (M = Ru, Os; bpy = 2,2′-bipyridine) and ynone HC≡C(C=O)Ph in MeOH ( Scheme 1 a; C^O represents an anionic bidentate [ C (OMe)CHC(Ph) O ] − chelate, coordinating atoms in italics) [ 38 ].…”