Metal‐Catalyzed Decarbenations by Retro‐Cyclopropanation

This chapter describes the most recent advances made in the field of generation of metal carbenes by retro-Buchner reaction and other related decarbenation processes. Over the past 10 years, this strategy has been established as a powerful alternative for accessing these highly reactive and versatile intermediates, leading to the development of many synthetic methodologies, which have been applied for the assembly of natural products and a variety of other relevant structures. The mechanistic rationale behind these processes, backed up by both experiments and calculations, is also discussed.