Decomposition of Ruthenium Olefin Metathesis Catalyst

Ruthenium olefin metathesis catalysts are one of the most commonly used class of catalysts. There are multiple reviews on their uses in various branches of chemistry and other sciences but a detailed review of their decomposition is missing, despite a large number of recent and important advances in this field. In particular, in the last five years several new mechanism of decomposition, both olefin-driven as well as induced by external agents, have been suggested and used to explain differences in the decomposition rates and the metathesis activities of both standard, N-heterocyclic carbene-based systems and the recently developed cyclic alkyl amino carbene-containing complexes. Here we present a review which explores the last 30 years of the decomposition studied on ruthenium olefin metathesis catalyst driven by both intrinsic features of such catalysts as well as external chemicals.