Addition reactions allylic bromination

The basic premise for making bromosafrole has been to mix sa-frole with Hydrobromic Acid (a.k.a. hydrogen bromide, HBr). That s it. The HBr does what is called a Markovnikov addition reaction whereby the HBr sees the allyl double bond of safrole and preferentially attaches its hydrogen to the gamma carbon and its bromine to the middle beta carbon (don t ask). 

In addition to its effect on stability, delocalization of the unpaired electron in the allyl radical has other chemical consequences. Because the unpaired electron is delocalized over both ends of the nr orbital system, reaction with Br2 can occur at either end. As a result, allylic bromination of an unsymmetrical alkene often leads to a mixture of products. For example, bromination of 1-octene gives a mixture of 3-bromo-l-octene and l-bromo-2-octene. The two products are not formed in equal amounts, however, because the intermediate allylic radical is... 

When the allylic cation reacts with Br to complete the electrophilic addition, reaction can occur either at Cl or at C3 because both carbons share the positive charge (Figure 14.4). Thus, a mixture of 1,2- and 1,4-addition products results. (Recall that a similar product mixture was seen for NBS bromination of alkenes in Section 10.4, a reaction that proceeds through an allylic radical.)... 

The other bromine atom comes from another bromine-containing molecule or ion. This is clearly not a problem in reactions with benzylic species since the benzene ring is not prone to such addition reactions. If the concentration is sufficiently low, there is a low probability that the proper species will be in the vicinity once the intermediate forms. The intermediate in either case reverts to the initial species and the allylic substitution competes successfully. If this is true, it should be possible to brominate an alkene in the allylic position without competition from addition, even in the absence of NBS or a similar compound, if a very low concentration of bromine is used and if the HBr is removed as it is formed so that it is not available to complete the addition step. This has indeed been demonstrated. ... 

This could complicate an allylic bromination reaction, and it is necessary to choose conditions that minimize any addition to the double bond. This is achieved by carrying out the reaction in a solvent of low polarity, e.g. CCU, which suppresses the possibility of the polar electrophilic addition, whilst keeping the concentration of bromine very low to suppress radical addition. 

Novel results were reported for allylic bromination. In radical bromination of cyclohexene in CCI4 under light the selectivity of substitution over addition was shown to be controlled by bromine concentration.304 Substitution via the corresponding allyl radical, while relatively slow, is irreversible and fast enough to maintain the concentration of bromine at a sufficiently low level to prevent significant addition. The reaction of two strained alkenes, fZ)-1,2-dimethyl-1,2-di-ferf-butylethylene and the -isomer (14), leads to the corresponding bromosubstituted product, instead of addition 305... 

In the photochemical procedure, addition product can be minimized in keeping the relative NBS concentration as small as possible. In addition, substrate concentrations should be optimized with regard to the exitance of the chosen light source to avoid secondary recombination reactions. Under these conditions 4-bromomethyl-5-methyl-l,3-dioxol-2-one can be prepared with only minor impurities (bromine addition and multiple allylic bromination reactions (Eq. 23)) [34]. 

Somewhat surprisingly, particularly in view of the proposed means of formation of the glycosid-3-ulose derivative 2,1,5-anhydro-2,3,4,6-tetra-O-benzoyl-D-arah/no-hex-1 -enitol (tetra-O-benzoyl-2-hydroxy-D-glucal) does not undergo bromination at the allylic C-3 atom the only products isolated following attempted photobromination with N-bromosucdnimide were two dibromides produced by addition reactions.50... 

NBS has proved to be especially useful in brominations at allylic positions because competition from the addition of bromine to the double bond is not a problem. Apparently, the fact that only a low concentration of Br2 is ever present in NBS brominations somehow inhibits the addition reaction. Examples are provided in the following equations. Note that the reaction is best if only a single type of allylic hydrogen is available to be abstracted. In addition, the resonance-stabilized allylic radical provides two sites that can abstract a bromine atom. If these two sites are different, a mixture of products is formed, as shown in the second example ... 

For efficient allylic bromination, a large concentration of bromine must be avoided because bromine can also add to the double bond (Chapter 8). A-Bromosuccimnude (NBS) is often used as the bromine source in free-radical brominations because it combines with the HBr side product to regenerate a constant low concentration of bromine. No additional bromine is needed because most samples of NBS contain traces of Br2 to initiate the reaction. 

A thoughtful reader would have noticed that, while plenty of methods are available for the reductive transformation of functionalized moieties into the parent saturated fragments, we have not referred to the reverse synthetic transformations, namely oxidative transformations of the C-H bond in hydrocarbons. This is not a fortuitous omission. The point is that the introduction of functional substituents in an alkane fragment (in a real sequence, not in the course of retrosynthetic analysis) is a problem of formidable complexity. The nature of the difficulty is not the lack of appropriate reactions - they do exist, like the classical homolytic processes, chlorination, nitration, or oxidation. However, as is typical for organic molecules, there are many C-H bonds capable of participating in these reactions in an indiscriminate fashion and the result is a problem of selective functionalization at a chosen site of the saturated hydrocarbon. At the same time, it is comparatively easy to introduce, selectively, an additional functionality at the saturated center, provided some function is already present in the molecule. Examples of this type of non-isohypsic (oxidative) transformation are given by the allylic oxidation of alkenes by Se02 into respective a,/3-unsaturated aldehydes, or a-bromination of ketones or carboxylic acids, as well as allylic bromination of alkenes with NBS (Scheme 2.64). 

A chemist requires a large amount of l-bromo-2-pentene as starting material for a synthesis and decides to carry out an NBS allylic bromination reaction. What is wrong with the following synthesis plan What side products would form in addition to the desired product ... 

The research team of J. Tadanier prepared a series of C8-modified 3-deoxy-P-D-manno-2-octulosonic acid analogues as potential inhibitors of CMP-Kdo synthetase. One of the derivatives was prepared from a functionalized olefinic carbohydrate substrate by means of the Wohl-Ziegler bromination. The stereochemistry of the double bond was (Z), however, under the reaction conditions a cis-trans isomerization took place in addition to the bromination at the allylic position (no yield was reported for this step). It is worth noting that the authors did not use a radical initiator for this transformation, the reaction mixture was simply irradiated with a 150W flood lamp. Subsequently the allylic bromide was converted to an allylic azide, which was then subjected to the Staudinger reaction to obtain the corresponding allylic amine. 

Thus, the NBS acts so as to produce a very low, steady concentration of bromine molecules. The very low concentration accounts for the fact that there is very little addition of the bromine molecule across the double bond. The addition reaction of HBr is also kept to a minimum, because the HBr is consumed by the NBS. This allylic bromination is called the Wohl-Ziegler bromination. 

AIBN. The ease of the allylic bromination of 18 has been attributed to the presence of the endoperoxide, which can initiate the radical reaction [44], Similar results were obtained with Br2 without initiator, whereas Br2 reacts with glycal 10 through an electrophilic addition on the double bond [44, 67],... 

Allylic bromination is usually done with A-bromosuccinimide (NBS), which keeps the concentration of bromine low by reacting with the HBr formed in the first propagation step to produce the bromine needed for the second propagation step. This low bromine concentration suppresses the addition chain reaction, discussed next, by allowing time for the addition step to reverse before a bromine molecule is encountered. 

One of the complications in assessing the selectivity between atom abstraction and addition to an alkene is that one or the other might be reversible. The best known case where this appears is in two well-known reactions of bromine atoms. One of these is the allylic bromination of alkenes 7.16 7.18 using... 

For example, poly(alkyl acrylates) with bromine end groups were reacted with allyl tri-n-butyltin and Cu(0) in benzene. After 3h, complete radical addition reaction was obtained, ll NMR confirmed the presence of the allyl function. 

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