Addition reactions soft carbon nucleophiles

Additions of soft carbon nucleophiles to the carbonyl group of aldehydes, ketones and imines are reactions of obvious synthetic significance. For historical reasons, it is appropriate to start this short overview with the hydrocyanation reaction, as the addition of hydrogen cyanide to... 

Formation of a Tr-allylpalladium complex 29 takes place by the oxidative addition of allylic compounds, typically allylic esters, to Pd(0). The rr-allylpal-ladium complex is a resonance form of ir-allylpalladium and a coordinated tt-bond. TT-Allylpalladium complex formation involves inversion of stereochemistry, and the attack of the soft carbon nucleophile on the 7r-allylpalladium complex is also inversion, resulting in overall retention of the stereochemistry. On the other hand, the attack of hard carbon nucleophiles is retention, and hence Overall inversion takes place by the reaction of the hard carbon nucleophiles. 

TT-Aliylpalladium chloride reacts with a soft carbon nucleophile such as mal-onate and acetoacetate in DMSO as a coordinating solvent, and facile carbon-carbon bond formation takes place[l2,265], This reaction constitutes the basis of both stoichiometric and catalytic 7r-allylpalladium chemistry. Depending on the way in which 7r-allylpalladium complexes are prepared, the reaction becomes stoichiometric or catalytic. Preparation of the 7r-allylpalladium complexes 298 by the oxidative addition of Pd(0) to various allylic compounds (esters, carbonates etc.), and their reactions with nucleophiles, are catalytic, because Pd(0) is regenerated after the reaction with the nucleophile, and reacts again with allylic compounds. These catalytic reactions are treated in Chapter 4, Section 2. On the other hand, the preparation of the 7r-allyl complexes 299 from alkenes requires Pd(II) salts. The subsequent reaction with the nucleophile forms Pd(0). The whole process consumes Pd(ll), and ends as a stoichiometric process, because the in situ reoxidation of Pd(0) is hardly attainable. These stoichiometric reactions are treated in this section. 

In addition, a catalytic version of Tt-allylpalladium chemistry has been devel-oped[6,7]. Formation of the Tr-allylpalladium complexes by the oxidative addition of various allylic compounds to Pd(0) and subsequent reaction of the complex with soft carbon nucleophiles are the basis of catalytic allylation. After the reaction, Pd(0) is reformed, and undergoes oxidative addition to the allylic compounds again, making the reaction catalytic.-In addition to the soft carbon nucleophiles, hard carbon nucleophiles of organometallic compounds of main group metals are allylated with 7r-allylpalladium complexes. The reaction proceeds via transmetallation. These catalytic reactions are treated in this chapter. 

Addition of carbon nucleophiles to vinylepoxides is of particular importance, since a new carbon-carbon bond is formed. It is of considerable tactical value that conditions allowing for regiocontrolled opening of vinyloxiranes with this type of nucleophiles have been developed. Reactions that proceed through fonnation of a rr-allyl metal intermediate with subsequent external delivery of the nucleophile, or that make use of a soft carbon nucleophile, generally deliver the SN2 product. In contrast, the Sn2 variant is often the major reaction pathway when hard nucleophiles are employed. In some methods a nucleophile can be delivered selectively at either the Sn2 or SN2 positions by changing the reaction conditions. 

Substitution reactions of allylic substrates with nucleophiles have been shown to be catalyzed by certain palladium complexes [2, 42], The catalytic cycle of the reactions involves Jt-allylpalladium as a key intermediate (Scheme 2-22). Oxidative addition of the allylic substrate to a palladium(o) species forms a rr-allylpal-ladium(n) complex, which undergoes attack of a nucleophile on the rr-allyl moiety to give an allylic substitution product. The substitution reactions proceed in an Sn or Sn- manner depending on catalysts, nucleophiles, and substituents on the substrates. Studies on the stereochemistry of the allylic substitution have revealed that soft carbon nucleophiles represented by sodium dimethyl malonate attack the TT-allyl carbon directly from the side opposite to the palladium (Scheme 2-23). 

The sequential trans-addition of a carbon nucleophile and a carbon electrophile across an arene double bond in (arene)Cr(CO)3 was first reported in 1983 [35]. Since then this methodology has undergone extensive development, with recent efforts mainly directed towards enantioenriched products [36]. Anionic (cy-clohexadienyl)Cr(CO)3 complexes are very soft nucleophiles and this places restrictions on the electrophiles that can be used in this sequence. Specifically these reactions are successful when carbanion dissociation from the intermediate anionic cyclohexadienyl complex is slow compared to the reaction with the carbon electrophile. The sequential addition is usually carried out as a one-pot reaction and the proposed reaction sequence is that shown in Scheme 11. In contrast to the nucleophile addition/protonation sequence, products form with excellent 1,2-regioselectivity. It is likely that this is due to an irreversible transfer of the acyl, allyl, or propargyl group to one of the two termini of the cyclohexadienyl ligand. 

The [i-aUyl complexes can react with several types of nucleophiles, giving rise to the corresponding substitution products. O- and N-nucleophiles as well as soft carbon nucleophiles attack the t-allyl complex directly at the aUylic position, while hard C-nucleophiles react via transmetaUations [2c, 3]. If the nucleophihc attack occurs under an atmosphere of CO, insertion of CO can occur, yielding carbonyl compounds [4]. Alkenes and aUcynes can also insert into allyhnetal bonds, a protocol that is used preferentially for cycUzations [5]. Cyclizations can also occur, if the 7t-allylmetal complex contains an internal nucleophilic center. If the metalallyl complex acts as a nucleophile, direct coupling with aryl halides [6] or additions to electrophiles such as aldehydes, ketones, or imines are possible [7]. This review focuses on C-C coupling reactions via these tt-allyhnetal (or in some cases, a-allyhnetal) intermediates. 

The reaction of 7r-allylpalladium chloride with malonate and acetoacetate as soft carbon nucleophiles to give allytmalonate and allylacetoacetate, discovered by this author in 1965, is the first example of the carbon-carbon bond formation mediated by a Pd complex (Scheme In addition to the allylation of malonate, the reaction of cyclohexanone enamine with 7r-allylpalladium chloride gave 2-aUylcyclohexanone after hydrolysis. The discovery of the allylation of nucleohphiles with 7r-allylpalladium chloride means the birth of TT-allylpalladium chemistry, which has developed as a remarkably useful synthetic method. 

In addition to allylation of soft carbon nucleophiles, aoss-coupling of rr-allylpalla-dium intermediates with hard carbon nucleophiles of organometaUic compounds of main group metals is possible. Cross-couphng of allyhc compounds occurs by transmetallation between 7r-allylpalladium intermediates and organometaUic compounds of Mg, Zn, B, Al, Si, Sn, and Hg, and subsequent reductive elimination. These carbon-carbon bondforming reactions are discussed in Sect JIL2. 

In general, Pd-catalyzed reaction of propargyl compounds provides synthetically valuable allenyl compounds through addition, transmetallation, or oxypalladation of allenylpalla-dium intermediates. Exceptionally, soft carbon nucleophiles such as malonate and methyl acetoacetate attack the sp carbon of allenylpalladium intermediates to afford allylic compounds and furan derivatives. 

Soft carbon nucleophiles, such as activated methylene or methyne compounds 11, react with butadiene to give a mixture of the mono- (12) and di-(2,7-octadienyl) adducts (13) in the case of = H (activated methylenes), and to give the monoadduct 12 in the case of activated methynes, as expected (Scheme 3). The addition reactions with various carbon nucleophiles, such as j8-keto esters, /S-diketones, malonate and malononitrile, a-formyl ketones and esters, a-cyano ketones and esters, cyanoacetoacetamide, phenyl-sulfonyl acetate,nitroalkanes, and an enamine, are summarized in Table 1. PdCl2(PPh3)2-NaOPh is often used as a catalyst for the dimerization reaction. Complexes... 

Catalytic Asymmetric Addition Reactions of Cu(I)-Conjugated Soft Carbon Nucleophiles... 

Oxidative Reactions of Alkenes. Oxidative reactions of alkenes can be classified into two types oxidative substitution and oxidative addition, as shown in eq 1. Here X and Y represent nucleophiles such as HO, RO, RCO2, R2N and CO, as well as soft carbon nucleophiles such as active methylene corrpounds. 

Fukui functions and local softnesses and their application in typical organic reactions (electrophilic substitutions on aromatic systems, nucleophilic additions to activated carbon-carbon double and triple bonds) [34-39]. 

Among the various carbon-carbon and carbon-hetero atom bond forming reactions promoted or catalyzed by transition metals, allylic substitution via electrophilic n-allyl-complexes is of utmost importance. Studies focused on the synthetic potential of alkyl or aryl substituted ( n3-allyl)Fe(CO)4 1+) complexes have shown that nucleophilic attack by soft carbon and hetero atom nucleophiles preferentially proceeds regioselectively at the less or syn-substituted allyl terminus.4 Additionally, polar effects on the regioselectivity of this reaction caused by electron-withdrawing functionalities (e.g., CO2R, CONR2) have been examined by the... 

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