Dear Bathabile, thank you for sharing this interesting chemical problem with the RG community. Unfortunately it seems a bit difficult to give you a really helpful answer, because it is (at least to me) not clear what you mean by "struggling" with your ring closure metathesis reaction. What happened? Does the reaction not work, did you have low yields, or have you been unable to purify your product? It would be helpful to be somewhat more specific about this. Did you follow a literature procedure or did you try a new reaction?

In any case it might be a good idea to have a look at the following potentially useful review article:

Ring closing enyne metathesis: A powerful tool for the synthesis of heterocycles

Article Ring Closing Enyne Metathesis: A Powerful Tool for the Synth...

Unfortunately this article has not yet been posted as public full text on RG. however, the correspounding author has an RG profile (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carsten-Bolm) so that you can easily request the full text directly from him via RG.

Good luck with your work and best wishes!

Thank you very much for your input. I am struggling to get my product, I have followed different procedures but I always separate my starting material. It worked once and I got a low yield of about 5% and when I tried again I separated starting material. I use Grubbs 2nd in DCM and reflux. I’ve also tried hoveyda grubbs it still doesn’t work.

Dear Bathabile Makhathini thanks for the kind response and explanation. In such a case it is really diffilcult to give a specific advice from the outside. Normally this would be a problem that should be discussed in detail with your supervisor. If it is a new reaction, there is always the chance that it simply doesn't work e.g. due to steric reasons. Many other factors can be the reason for your problem. Perhaps you should try a higher-boiling solvent that DCM. Also make sure that all your starting materials and solvents are pure and carefully dried. You can also check the "Publications" section of RG for other potentially useful literature references. Many of them are even freely available as public full texts.

Good luck with your research!

Thank you very much