Addition to arenes

The first use of chiral oxazolines as activating groups for nucleophilic additions to arenes was described by Meyers in 1984. " Reaction of naphthyloxazoline 3 with phenyllithium followed by alkylation of the resulting anion with iodomethane afforded dihydronaphthalene 10 in 99% yield as an 83 17 mixture of separable diastereomers. Reductive cleavage of 10 by sequential treatment with methyl fluorosulfonate, NaBKi, and aqueous oxalic acid afforded the corresponding enantiopure aldehyde 11 in 88% yield. 

Neutral (cyclohexadienyl)manganese complexes 71, generated by nucleophilic addition to (arene)Mn(CO)3+ cations 65, undergo ligand substitution with nitrosyl hexafluorophosphate to give the corresponding (cyclohexadienyl)Mn(CO)2NO+ cations 72 (Scheme 17)93. Attack by a wide variety of nucleophiles on cations 72... 

Both methodologies described in this chapter impressively illustrate the versatility of Bi(OTf)3 as a mild Lewis acid catalyst. Most notably, in addition to arenes, other nucleophiles such as amines, amides, alcohols and thiols could as well be used in this transformation. 

ADDITION TO ARENE-METAL COMPLEXES TO GIVE tv -CYCLOHEXADIENYL INTERMEDIATES 531... 

In summary, intramolecular radical cyclization reactions onto aromatic rings can provide quick access of otherwise not so easily assembled Ca0. -C.ryi bonds, although the yields are generally low and the process suffers from a lack of regioselectivity. Noticeably, Crich found that a catalytic amount of benzeneselenol, which can also be generated in situ reduction of diphenylselenide with stannane [57]. This method should find synthetic utility in intramolecular radical addition to arenes. 

The possibility of coordination of a two-electron ligand, in addition to arene, to the ruthenium or osmium atom provides a route to mixed metal or cluster compounds. Cocondensation of arene with ruthenium or osmium vapors has recently allowed access to new types of arene metal complexes and clusters. In addition, arene ruthenium and osmium appear to be useful and specific catalyst precursors, apart from classic hydrogenation, for carbon-hydrogen bond activation and activation of alkynes such compounds may become valuable reagents for organic syntheses. 

M. F. Semmelhack, Nucleophilic Addition to Arene-Metal Complexes, in Comprehensive Organic Synthesis (Ed. B. Trost, Pergamon, Oxford, U.K., 1991, Vol. 4, pp. 517-549). 

Scheme 44 Intramolecular nucleophilic addition to Arene-Cr(CO)3 complexes...

Alkyllithium addition to the (ti -arene) dicarbonylchromium imine chelates has been examined. Treatment of optically pure chelate (41) with methyllithium provides amine (42) with an enantiomeric excess of 94% (Scheme 5). No diastereoselectivity was reported for alkyllithium additions to (arene)tri-carbonylchromium complex (40). In the absence of additional examples, the generality of this chromium chelate methodology for asymmetric amine synthesis cannot be assessed. 

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