Active-methylene compounds enolates from

According to Figure 13.1, carbon-bound H atoms are acidic if they are bound to carbon atoms that are in the a-position with respect to an electron acceptor that can stabilize a negative charge via resonance (-M effect). Carbon-bound H atoms are even more acidic if they are located in the opposition of two such electron acceptors, which is the case in the so-called active-methylene compounds. Enolates derived from active-methylene compounds require three resonance forms for their description, and resonance forms A and B (Figure 13.6) are the more important ones. Compounds that contain an FI atom in the Opposition with respect to three electron acceptors are even more acidic than active-methylene compounds. However, such compounds do not play a significant role in organic chemistry. 

Aldol Addition and Related Reactions. Procedures that involve the formation and subsequent reaction of anions derived from active methylene compounds constitute a very important and synthetically useful class of organic reactions. Perhaps the most common are those reactions in which the anion, usually called an enolate, is formed by removal of a proton from the carbon atom alpha to the carbonyl group. Addition of this enolate to another carbonyl of an aldehyde or ketone, followed by protonation, constitutes aldol addition, for example... 

Active methylene compounds may be sulfinylated by reaction of their enolate anions with sulfinate ester7-1 This reaction has been investigated much in recent years and the compounds resulting from it have been of considerable use in asymmetric synthesis (see the chapter by Posner). Examples of the sulfinylation are given in the following paragraphs. 

Various transition metals have been used in redox processes. For example, tandem sequences of cyclization have been initiated from malonate enolates by electron-transfer-induced oxidation with ferricenium ion Cp2pe+ (51) followed by cyclization and either radical or cationic termination (Scheme 41). ° Titanium, in the form of Cp2TiPh, has been used to initiate reductive radical cyclizations to give y- and 5-cyano esters in a 5- or 6-exo manner, respectively (Scheme 42). The Ti(III) reagent coordinates both to the C=0 and CN groups and cyclization proceeds irreversibly without formation of iminyl radical intermediates.The oxidation of benzylic and allylic alcohols in a two-phase system in the presence of r-butyl hydroperoxide, a copper catalyst, and a phase-transfer catalyst has been examined. The reactions were shown to proceed via a heterolytic mechanism however, the oxidations of related active methylene compounds (without the alcohol functionality) were determined to be free-radical processes. 

In the presence of freeze-dried potassium fluoride, perfluoro-2-methylpent-2-ene reacts with activated methylene compounds to yield pyrans (81MI22400). The fluoride ion abstracts a proton from the methylene group and subsequent condensation of the carbanion with the perfluoroalkene affords a dienone (19) which ring closes to the pyran (20 Scheme 3). In the case of pentane-2,4-dione a divinyl ether (21) is also formed. This product is considered to arise from reaction of the alkene at the oxygen of the enolate ion. 

Two mechanisms have been proposed for the Knoevenagel reaction. In one, the role of the amine is to form an imine or iminium salt (378) which subsequently reacts with the enolate of the active methylene compound. Under normal circumstances elimination of the amine would give the cinnamic acid derivative (379). However, when an o-hydroxy group is present in the aromatic aldehyde intramolecular ring closure to the coumarin can occur. The timing of the various steps may be different from that shown (Scheme 118). 

An acetoacetic ester is an active-methylene compound and it can be deprotonated (Table 13.1) with one equivalent of NaOEt in EtOH to the sodium enolate A (Figure 13.26). As is depicted in Figure 13.26, A is monoalkylated by butyl bromide. This is possible even though the buty-lated sodium enolate B is already present while the reaction is still under way. The sodium enolate B is formed in an equilibrium reaction between not-yet-butylated enolate A and the butylation product C. B represents a nucleophilic alternative to unreacted enolate A. However, the butylated enolate B is sterically more demanding than the nonbutylated enolate A. The first butylation of A is thus faster than the second butylation reaction, that is, the butylation of B. This reactivity difference is not large enough to cause 100% monobutylation and 0% dibutylation. Still, the main product is the product of monobutylation C. Distillation is required to separate the monobutylation product from the dibutylation product and from unreacted substrate. 

When the enolate of an active-methylene compound undergoes acylation with a carboxylic acid chloride, an active-methyne compound is formed initially (Figure 13.65, 13.66). If the electron acceptors therein are solely acyl- or (alkoxycarbonyl) groups, the substructure mentioned suffers from steric hindrance and substantial electrostatic repulsion forces. Active-methyne compounds with such a substitution pattern will react to alleviate this destabilization. 

The active-methyne compounds, which derive from the acylation of the enolates of active-methylene compounds with carboxylic acid chlorides, eliminate the extra acceptor(s) in an additional step or immediately in situ. The defunctionalizations involved include one or two decaboxylations depending on the nature of the reactants and subsequent processing steps (Figures 13.66 and 13.67)... 

MCI reactions of alkynyliodonium salts with enolates derived from active methylene compounds containing two acidic CH bonds follow a divergent course that leads to furans, presumably via carbenic insertion into enolic OH bonds (equation 122)28. In the reaction of acetylacetonate ion with the l-decynyl(phenyl)iodonium ion, CH insertion is competitive with OH insertion (equation 123)28. 

Nucleophilic attack on ( -alkene)Fp+ cations may be effected by heteroatom nucleophiles including amines, azide ion, cyanate ion (through N), alcohols, and thiols (Scheme 39). Carbon-based nucleophiles, such as the anions of active methylene compounds (malonic esters, /3-keto esters, cyanoac-etate), enamines, cyanide, cuprates, Grignard reagents, and ( l -allyl)Fe(Cp)(CO)2 complexes react similarly. In addition, several hydride sources, most notably NaBHsCN, deliver hydride ion to Fp(jj -alkene)+ complexes. Subjecting complexes of type (79) to Nal or NaBr in acetone, however, does not give nncleophilic attack, but instead results rehably in the displacement of the alkene from the iron residue. Cyclohexanone enolates or silyl enol ethers also may be added, and the iron alkyl complexes thus produced can give Robinson annulation-type products (Scheme 40). Vinyl ether-cationic Fp complexes as the electrophiles are nseful as vinyl cation equivalents. ... 

Halogens (mainly chlorine) at position 4 of quinazolines 12 can be displaced by a variety of carbon nucleophiles, c.g. carbon nucleophiles derived from active methylene compounds, ketone enolates, aromatic aldehydes, organolithium reagents, alkylidenephosphorane, dimethyloxosulfonium methylide, alkynes, and cyanide. ... 

The reaction sequence is called the Regitz diazo transfer and requires active methylene compounds as substrates/ Hence it is common to use formic esters to create P-carbonyl compounds from ketones or aldehydes in an aldol reaction. These are used as substrates for deformy-lative diazo transfer reactions in which the diazo group is transferred and the formyl group is removed in one concerted step. The mechanism of the deformylative diazo transfer is shown below. In this case the bulky base NaHMDS ensures deprotonation at the less-hindered a-position of 3, forming the so-called kinetic enolate 13. This enolate is formylated by ethyl formate yielding the P-formyl ketone 14, which is used as substrate in the deformylative diazo transfer. 

The condensation of enolates derived from malonic esters and other active methylene compounds with a,p-unsaturated aldehydes, ketones, esters, or nitriles proceeds exclusively by 1,4-addition. The conjugate addition to a,(3-unsaturated compounds, often called Michael acceptors, is promoted by treatment of the active methylene species with either an excess of a weak base (e.g., Et3N or piperidine) or using a stronger base in catalytic amounts (e.g., 0.1-0.3 equivalents NaH, NaOEt, or r-BuOK). 

The possible mechanism for diazo transfer from p-toluenesulfonyl azide to active methylene compound 3 (flanked by carbonyl groups) is depicted below.1,3 Deprotonation of a-keto ester 3 with NEt3 leads to enolate 4 which attacks at the electrophilic N of the sulfonyl azide 5 to give intermediate tosyl derivative 6. Proton transfer occurs within intermediate 6 followed by elimination of p-toluenesulfonamide, leading to diazo compound 7 and the by-product -toluene sulfonamide 8.1,3... 

Fluorination. This new reagent, which that needs no special caution or glassware in handling, can be used for fluorination of aromatic rings, alkenes, enol ethers, and dienol acetates. In the presence of ZnCl2, either mono- or difluoro derivatives of active methylene compounds can be isolated from its reactions. 

The phosphorylation of the mesomeric anion from a ketone or other active methylene compound forms a standard route to enol phosphates the process is illustrated in equation 32 with the formation of the phosphate esters 548 (R = Me or Ph, = H, COMe or... 

As mentioned already in Section 2.6, it is somewhat arbitrary to discuss diazo transfer reactions to alkenes in isolation from those to activated methylene compounds. The most important activation in methylene compounds is that of a neighboring carbonyl group and, as a consequence, the active methylene compound is in equilibrium with the corresponding enol, i.e., with an alkene as established by the systematic work of Huisgen (review Huisgen, 1984), typical diazo transfers involve 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of a 1,3-dipole (azides) to a multiple-bond system, the dienophile (see Chapt. 6). In diazo transfer, this dienophile is an alkene or an alkyne, and the primary product is a A -l,2,3-triazoline or a A -l,2,3-triazole,... 

Titration of sodium 15-crown-5 salts of 1,3-cyclohexanedionate (A) and cyanonitromethide (B) with picric acid in acetonitrile. The line drawn through the data is a Henderson-Hasselbalch fit. The data come from Kelly-Rowley, A. M., Lynch, V. M., and Anslyn, E. V. "Molecular Recognition of Enolates of Active Methylene Compounds in Acetonitrile. The Interplay between Complementarity and Basicity, and the Use of Hydrogen Bonding to Lower Guest pfCaS." ] Am. Chem. Soc., 117,3438 (1995). 

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