Alkylidene Carbene from Silyl Vinyl Iodide Provides Mechanistic Insights on Trimethylenemethane Diyl-Mediated Tandem Cyclizations

We describe a method to generate alkylidene carbenes via tetramethylammonium-fluoride-induced desilylation of silyl vinyl iodides. The reversible carbene generation from an iodovinyl anion enabled us to unearth mechanistic aspects of the trimethylenemethane (TMM) diyl cyclization reaction that could not be explored via previous methods. We observed that a slow diyl–diylophile cycloaddition can induce the reversible formation of an alkylidene carbene from the TMM diyl intermediate via a retro-cyclopropanation at ambient temperature.