Addition of Hydrogen Cyanide Cyanohydrins

Hydrogen cyanide adds reversibly to the carbonyl group of aldehydes and ketones to form cyanohydrins, compounds with a hydroxyl and a cyano group attached to the same carbon. A basic catalyst is required. 

Hydrogen cyanide has no unshared electron pair on its carbon, so it cannot function as a carbon nucleophile. The base converts some of the hydrogen cyanide to cyanide ion (NC ), however, which then acts as a carbon nucleophile. 

PROBLEM 9.17 Write an equation for the addition of HCN to a. propanal b. cyclopentanecarbaldehyde c. benzophenone (Sec. 9.1) 

Cyanohydrin chemistry plays a central role in the defense system of Aphelo-ria corrugata. This millipede uses a two-chamber gland much like that used by the bombardier beetle (see A Word About... Quinones and the Bombardier Beetle in Chapter 7) to deliver a secretion that contains hydrogen cyanide. Apheloria stores benzaldehyde cyanohydrin and, when threatened, converts it to a mixture of benzal-dehyde and hydrogen cyanide, which is then secreted. The hydrogen cyanide gas that emanates from the secretion is an effective deterrent of predators. 

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The product of addition of hydrogen cyanide to an aldehyde or a ketone contains both a hydroxyl group and a cyano group bonded to the same carbon Compounds of this type are called cyanohydrins... 

The addition of hydrogen cyanide is catalyzed by cyanide ion but HCN is too weak an acid to provide enough C=N for the reaction to proceed at a reasonable rate Cyanohydrins are therefore normally prepared by adding an acid to a solution containing the carbonyl compound and sodium or potassium cyanide This procedure ensures that free cyanide ion is always present m amounts sufficient to increase the rate of the reaction... 

The presence of an aldehyde function m their open chain forms makes aldoses reactive toward nucleophilic addition of hydrogen cyanide Addition yields a mixture of diastereo meric cyanohydrins... 

Enantioselective addition of hydrogen cyanide to hydroxypivaldehyde (25), catalyzed by (lf)-oxynittilase, afforded (R)-cyanohydrin (26) in good optical yield. Acid-catalyzed hydrolysis followed by cyclization resulted in (R)-pantolactone in 98% ee and 95% yield after one recrystallization (56). 

A cyanohydrin is an organic compound that contains both a cyanide and a hydroxy group on an aUphatic section of the molecule. Cyanohydrias are usually a-hydroxy nitriles which are the products of base-cataly2ed addition of hydrogen cyanide to the carbonyl group of aldehydes and ketones. The lUPAC name for cyanohydrias is based on the a-hydroxy nitrile name. Common names of cyanohydrias are derived from the aldehyde or ketoae from which they are formed (Table 1). 

Addition of hydrogen cyanide to an aldose to form a cyanohydrin is the first step in the Kiliani-Fischer method for increasing the carbon chain of aldoses by one unit. Cyanohydrins react with Grignard reagents (see Grignard reaction) to give a-hydroxy ketones. 

AH ahphatic aldehydes and most ketones react to form cyanohydrins. The lower reactivity of ketones, relative to aldehydes, is attributed to a combination of electron-donating effects and increased steric hindrance of the second alkyl group in the ketones. The magnitude of the equiUbrium constants for the addition of hydrogen cyanide to a carbonyl group is a measure of the stabiUty of the cyanohydrin relative to the carbonyl compound plus hydrogen cyanide ... 

Silylated cyanohydrins have also been prepared via silylation of cyanohydrins themselves and by the addition of hydrogen cyanide to silyl enol ethers. Silylated cyanohydrins have proved to be quite useful in a variety of synthetic transformations, including the regiospecific protection of p-quinones, as intermediates in an efficient synthesis of a-aminomethyl alcohols, and for the preparation of ketone cyanohydrins themselves.The silylated cyanohydrins of heteroaromatic aldehydes have found extensive use as... 

The formation of a-amino nitrile 2 is likely to proceed via a cyanohydrin 4 (an a-hydroxy nitrile) as intermediate, which is formed by the addition of hydrogen cyanide to the aldehyde 1 ... 

Today, the most promising synthesis of optically active cyanohydrins, especially with respect to the enantioselectivity of the reaction, is the enzyme-catalyzed addition of hydrogen cyanide to aldehydes and ketones, respectively. 

A short synthesis of D-gulono-1,4-lactone (2) from the inexpensive and readily available D-xylose (34) was first reported by Fischer and Stahel,18 and subsequently by others,12,25-31 and is shown in Scheme 6. The addition of hydrogen cyanide to D-xylose (34) resulted in the formation of cyanohydrins 35 and 36 which, on hydrolysis, afforded a mixture of D-gulonic acid (4) and D-idonic acid (37). D-Gulono-1,4-lactone may be obtained in 30-33% yield by recrystallization of the reaction products. In a similar way, L-xylose (l-34) has been converted32,33 in high yield into a mixture of L-gulonic and L-idonic acids. 

The other reactions of the aldehydes, which are extraordinarily reactive substances, need only he mentioned here. Such reactions are reduction to alcohols, formation of hydrazones, oximes, semicarbazones, bisulphite compounds, acetals and cyanohydrins (by addition of hydrogen cyanide). 

Oxynitrilases are enzymes that catalyze the formation and cleavage of cyanohydrins through the stereoselective addition of hydrogen cyanide to aldehydes or methyl ketones giving enantiopure a-hydroxynitriles. The use of (R)-oxynitrilases for the preparation of chiral cyanohydrins has dramatically grown in the last decade because of their possibihties as precursors for the synthesis of many compounds with physiological properties [50]. 

Chemists in Japan have studied an asymmetric cyanohydrin synthesis addition of hydrogen cyanide to benzaldehyde using synthetic peptides as catalysts 75). 

Addition of hydrogen cyanide to carbonyl compounds preparation of cyanohydrins... 

Addition of hydrogen cyanide to aldehyde and ketone forms cyanohydrin. The reaction is usually carried out using sodium or potassium cyanide with HCl. Hydrogen cyanide is a toxic volatile liquid, and a weak acid. Therefore, the best way to carry out this reaction is to generate it in situ by adding HCl to a mixture of aldehydes or ketones and excess sodium or potassium cyanide. Cyanohydrins are useful in organic reaction, because the cyano group can be converted easily to an amine, amide or carboxylic acid. 

Acrylonitrile is made from ethylene oxide by combining it with hydrogen cyanide and dehydrating the resultant cyanohydrin. Acrylonitrile is now used mostly for nitrile rubber. The new synthetic fibers Orion, Dynel, and Chemstrand will be large consumers of acrylonitrile. However, a large part of the expanded output of this derivative may come from the addition of hydrogen cyanide to acetylene. 

Acrylonitrile was first produced in Germany and the United States on an industrial scale in the early 1940s. These processes were based on the catalytic dehydration of ethylene cyanohydrin. Ethylene cyanohydrin was produced from ethylene oxide and aqueous hydrocyanic acid at 60°C in the presence of a basic catalyst. The intermediate was then dehydrated in the liquid phase at 200°C in the presence of magnesium carbonate and alkaline or alkaline earth salts of fonnic acid. A second commercial route to acrylonitrile was the catalytic addition of hydrogen cyanide to acetylene. The last commercial plants using these process technologies were shut down in 1970 (Langvardt, 1985 Brazdil, 1991). 

Cyanohydrin derivatives have also been widely used as acyl anion synthons. They are prepared from carbonyl compounds by addition of hydrogen cyanide. A very useful variant is to use trimethylsilyl cyanide with an aldehyde to produce a trimethylsilyloxy cyanide. The cyano group acidifies the a position (pKA 25) and the a proton can be removed by a strong base. Alkylation of the anion and unmasking of the hydroxy group cause elimination of cyanide and re-formation of the carbonyl group. 

The addition of hydrogen cyanide to a carbonyl group of an aldehyde or most ketones produces a cyanohydrin. Sterically hindered ketones, however, don t undergo this reaction. 

The addition of hydrogen cyanide to a carbonyl group results in the formation of an a-hydroxy nitrile, a so-called cyanohydrin (A, Scheme 6.1) [1]. Compounds of this type have in many instances served as intermediates in the synthesis of, e.g., a-hydroxy acids B, a-hydroxy aldehydes C, fS-amino alcohols D, or a-hydroxy ketones E (Scheme 6.1) [1], In all these secondary transformations of the cyanohydrins A, the stereocenter originally introduced by HCN addition is preserved. Consequently, the catalytic asymmetric addition of HCN to aldehydes and ketones is a synthetically very valuable transformation. Besides addition of HCN, this chapter also covers the addition of trimethylsilyl cyanide and cyanoformate to car-... 

The hydroxynitrile lyase (HNL) class of enzymes, also referred to as oxynitrilases, consists of enzymes that catalyze the formation of chiral cyanohydrins by the stereospecific addition of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) to aldehydes and ketones (Scheme 19.36).275 279 These chiral cyanohydrins are versatile synthons, which can be further modified to prepare chiral a-hydroxy acids, a-hydroxy aldehydes and ketones, acyloins, vicinal diols, ethanolamines, and a- and P-amino acids, to name a few.280 Both (R)- and (.S )-selective HNLs have been isolated, usually from plant sources, where their natural substrates play a role in defense mechanisms of the plant through the release of HCN. In addition to there being HNLs with different stereo-preferences, two different classifications have been defined, based on whether the HNL contains a flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) co-factor. 

Fig. 2-28. Kiliani reaction. Addition of hydrogen cyanide to D-arabinose (1) yields cyanohydrins (2) and (3), which are hydrolyzed to D-gluconic acid (4) and D-mannonic acid (5). Because of asymmetric induction preferentially (4) is formed.

The initial drive for acrylonitrile (AN) production (6.2 Mt/a in 2004 worldwide) was the discovery, in the late 1930s, of the synthetic rubber Buna N. Today nitrile rubbers represent only a minor outlet for AN which is utilized primarily for polymerization to give textile fibres (50%) and ABS resins (24%), and for dimerization to adiponitrile (10%). Early industrial processes depended on the addition of hydrogen cyanide to acetylene or to ethylene oxide, followed by the dehydration of intermediate ethylene cyanohydrin. Both processes are obsolete and are now supplanted by the ammoxidation of propylene (Equation 34) introduced in 1960 by Standard Oil of Indiana (Sohio). The reason for the success stems from the effectiveness of the catalyst and because propylene,... 

The addition of hydrogen cyanide to carbonyl compounds gives a-hydroxy cyanides (cyanohydrin synthesis). The reaction is reversible, and the extent of the cyanohydrin formation depends upon the structure of the Carbonyl compound. The equilibrium highly favors the formation of aliphatic and alicyclic cyanohydrins however, aryl alkyl ketones react to a lesser extent, and diaryl ketones, not at all. The reaction may be accomplished by mixing the carbonyl compound with liquid hydrogen cyanide in the presence of a basic catalyst. The equilibrium... 

The reaction of carbon nucleophiles with the electron-deficient carbon of a carbonyl group represents one of the major ways of making C--C bonds. The addition of hydrogen cyanide to acetone to form the cyanohydrin g 3,15) was one of the first reactions to be studied mechanistically. The reversible reaction leads to the cyanohydrin in which the cyano group may be further modified by hydrolysis to a carboxylic acid or by reduction to an amine. 

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