Acetals, acid catalyzed enol ethers

The catalyzed reaction of enol ethers with carbonyl compounds (Scheme 1) has become an important reaction in synthesis. Compared to the metal enolate reactions (Part 1, Volume 2), the catalyz enol ether reactions offer the following distinct differences. Enol ethers are often isolable, stable covalent compounds, whereas the metal enolates are usually generated and used in situ. Under Lewis acid catalyzed conditions, a number of functional equivalents such as acetals, orthoesters, thioacetals, a-halo ethers and sulfides can participate as the electrophilic components, whereas many of them are normally unreactive towards metal enolates. In synthesis, enol ether reactions now rival and complement the enolate reactions in usefulness. Enol silyl ethers are particularly useful because of their ease of preparation, their reasonable reactivity and the mildness of the desilylation process. 

Type-Ill cyclizations are initiated by conversion of an acetal, ketal or enol ether into an oxonium ion. Such an activated carbonyl group attacks an olefin intramolecularly in an exo reaction. Mono- and trialkylated double bonds form new C-C bonds regioselectively at the least hindered terminus according to Markovnikov s rule, and in this case endo cyclization products can be produced25. It is worth noting that acetals are also used as initiators in cation olefin cyclizations (see Section 1.5.5.3.)26. Use of activated acetals in Lewis acid catalyzed C-glycoside synthesis is also known 12c 12e. 

The dimethyl acetal (94) is readily prepared from the 22-aldehyde (93) by direct reaction with methanol in the presence of hydrogen chloride. Ena-mines (95) are formed without a catalyst even with the poorly reactive piperidine and morpholine.Enol acetates (96) are prepared by refluxing with acetic anhydride-sodium acetate or by exchange with isopropenyl acetate in pyridine.Reaction with acetic anhydride catalyzed by boron trifluoride-etherate or perchloric acid gives the aldehyde diacetate. 

Symmetrical labile ethers such as cycloalkenyl ethers (15) or mixed acetals (16) can also be prepared from the 3-hydroxyl group by acid-catalyzed exchange etherification or by acid-catalyzed addition to cyclohexanone methyl enol ether. 

For those substrates more susceptible to nucleophilic attack (e.g., polyhalo alkenes and alkenes of the type C=C—Z), it is better to carry out the reaction in basic solution, where the attacking species is RO . The reactions with C=C—Z are of the Michael type, and OR goes to the side away from the Z. Since triple bonds are more susceptible to nucleophilic attack than double bonds, it might be expected that bases would catalyze addition to triple bonds particularly well. This is the case, and enol ethers and acetals can be produced by this reaction. Because enol ethers are more susceptible than triple bonds to electrophilic attack, the addition of alcohols to enol ethers can also be catalyzed by acids. " One utilization of this reaction involves the compound dihydropyran... 

The Mukaiyama aldol reaction refers to Lewis acid-catalyzed aldol addition reactions of silyl enol ethers, silyl ketene acetals, and similar enolate equivalents,48 Silyl enol ethers are not sufficiently nucleophilic to react directly with aldehydes or ketones. However, Lewis acids cause reaction to occur by coordination at the carbonyl oxygen, activating the carbonyl group to nucleophilic attack. 

Silyl enol ethers and silyl ketene acetals also offer both enhanced reactivity and a favorable termination step. Electrophilic attack is followed by desilylation to give an a-substituted carbonyl compound. The carbocations can be generated from tertiary chlorides and a Lewis acid, such as TiCl4. This reaction provides a method for introducing tertiary alkyl groups a to a carbonyl, a transformation that cannot be achieved by base-catalyzed alkylation because of the strong tendency for tertiary halides to undergo elimination. 

Still another possibility in the base-catalyzed reactions of carbonyl compounds is alkylation or similar reaction at the oxygen atom. This is the predominant reaction of phenoxide ion, of course, but for enolates with less resonance stabilization it is exceptional and requires special conditions. Even phenolates react at carbon when the reagent is carbon dioxide, but this may be due merely to the instability of the alternative carbonic half ester. The association of enolate ions with a proton is evidently not very different from the association with metallic cations. Although the equilibrium mixture is about 92 % ketone, the sodium derivative of acetoacetic ester reacts with acetic acid in cold petroleum ether to give the enol. The Perkin ring closure reaction, which depends on C-alkylation, gives the alternative O-alkylation only when it is applied to the synthesis of a four membered ring ... 

The scope of the acid-catalyzed formation of C-glycosyl compounds has been greatly expanded with the finding that enol ethers and ketene acetals can be used as the carbon source in electrophilic substitution reactions at the anomeric center.126 Treatment of 198 with the trimethylsilyl enol ether derived from cyclohexanone, in the presence of stannic chloride, led to 2-(2,3,5-tri-0-benzoyl-/J-D-ribofuranosyl)cyelohexanone (206), presumably by way of the inter-... 

Furans.2 Enol ethers, p-dicarbonyl compounds, and Mn(III) acetate (2 equiv.) react in acetic acid (25°) to form l-aIkoxy-l,2-dihydrofurans, which form furans readily on acid-catalyzed elimination of ROH. 

The reactions proceeded efficiently under mild conditions in short time. The silyl enol ethers reacted with the activated acetals or aldehydes at -78 °C to give predominant erythro- or threo-products [136, 137] respectively. In the same manner, the aldol reaction of thioacetals, catalyzed by an equimolar amount of catalyst, resulted in <-ketosulfides [139] with high diastereoselectivity. In the course of this investigation, the interaction of silyl enol ethers with a,]3-unsaturated ketones, promoted by the trityl perchlorate, was shown to proceed regioselec-tively through 1,2- [141] or 1,4-addition [138]. The application of the trityl salt as a Lewis acid catalyst was spread to the synthesis of ]3-aminoesters [142] from the ketene silyl acetals and imines resulting in high stereoselective outcome. 

Other Lewis acids can also effect conjugate addition of silyl enol ethers to electrophilic alkenes. For example, Mg(C104)2 catalyzes addition of ketene silyl acetals ... 

Strategies for preparing mixed, acyclic acetals on insoluble supports include the oxidative haloalkoxylation of support-bound enol ethers (Entry 6, Table 6.1) and the acid-catalyzed reaction of alcohols with resin-bound enol ethers [627]. Alternatively, resin-bound a-chloro ethers can be converted to mixed acetals by reaction with alcohols or phenols in the presence of strong bases (KO/Bu, HOfBu, DMF, 5 h) [550,628]. Polystyrene-bound a-(phenylseleno)ethers react with aliphatic alcohols under slightly acidic conditions (NIS, TfOH, DCM/dioxane (1 1), 0°C to 20 °C, 1 h) to yield mixed, acyclic acetals [628],... 

At this point, consideration was next accorded to proper introduction of the pair of substituents as in 34. As expected, the regiocontrolled introduction of a methyl group proved not to be problematic, and lithium diisopropylamide came to be favored as the base. The p isomer 29 predominted by a factor of 5 1 over the a isomer for the usual steric reasons (Scheme 5). To reach silyl enol ether 31, it was most efficient and practical to react the 29/30 mixture with chlorotrimethylsilane under thermodynamic conditions. This step proved to be critical, as it allowed for implementation of the Lewis acid-catalyzed acetylation of 31 under conditions where the benzyloxy substituent was inert. Equally convenient was the option to transform the modest levels of enol acetate produced competitively back to starting ketone by saponification with methanolic potassium hydroxide. 

Hoffmann and Pete [106] have irradiated D-alk- 3 -e n y I salicylates and obtained products which result from rearrangement reactions of primary ortho adducts (Scheme 31). The authors realized that the linear tricyclic dienes, formed by ring closure of the cyclooctatriene derivatives, are enol ethers which can be converted into acetals by acid-catalyzed addition of an alcohol. This shifts the... 

The imines 12 (X = 4-CH3-QH4-SO2 (Ts), Ar, C02R, COR, etc.) preformed or generated in situ from N,0- or N,N-acetals or hemiacetals are another important class of Mannich reagents frequently used for diastereo- and/or enantioselective aminoalkylation reactions catalyzed by chiral Lewis acids (usually copper or palladium BINAP complexes such as 13). Among other things excellent results were obtained in the aminoalkylation of silyl enol ethers or ketene acetals [24], A typical example is the synthesis of Mannich bases 14 depicted in Scheme 5 [24b], Because of their comparatively high electrophilicity imines 12 could even be used successfully for the asymmetric aminoalkylation of unactivated alkenes 15 (ene reactions, see Scheme 5) [24h, 25], and the diastereo- and/or enantioselective aminoalkyla-... 

The alternative to this 0,0-acetal formation is the sequence of addition and El reaction. As a matter of fact, this is familiar from the transformation of alcohols with carbonyl compounds, but only occurs in some (very rare) cases. This is illustrated by Figure 9.31 using acid-catalyzed transformations of ethanol with two /3-diketones as an example. Here, enol ethers, namely 3-ethoxy-2-cyclopentene-l-one and 3-ethoxy-2-cyclohexene-l-one, respectively, are... 

Fig. 9.32. Mechanism of the acid-catalyzed El elimination of methanol from 0,0-acetals. Synthesis of an enol ether and a dienol ether, respectively.

Figure 9.32 adds the information of how enol ethers are normally produced, i.e., enol ethers with no conjugation between the C=C- and the neighboring C=0 double bond 0,0-Acetals are subjected to an acid-catalyzed elimination of one equivalent of alcohol, via an El mechanism, that is, via an oxocarbenium ion intermediate that is deprotonated to give the respective enol ether (i.e., the product presented in the first line of Figure 9.32) or dienol ether (the product shown in the second line of Figure 9.32). Among other things, enol ethers are required for the Mukaiyama aldol addition (example Figure 12.23).

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