Oxidative addition of carbon-carbon bonds to gold.

The oxidative addition of strained CC bonds (biphenylene, benzocyclobutenone) to DPCb (diphosphino-carborane) gold(I) complexes is reported. The resulting cationic organogold(III) complexes have been isolated and fully characterized. Experimental conditions can be adjusted to obtain selectively acyl gold(III) complexes resulting from oxidative addition of either the C(aryl)C(O) or C(alkyl)C(O) bond of benzocyclobutenone. DFT calculations provide mechanistic insight into this unprecedented transformation.