Alcohol cations, reaction with

Note that in the S -l reaction, which is often carried out under acidi conditions, neutral water can act as a leaving group. This occurs, for exam pie, when an alkyl halide is prepared from a tertiary alcohol by reaction with HBr or HCl (Section 10,7). The alcohol is first protonated and then spontaneously loses HgO to generate a carbocation. Reaction of the carbo cation with halide ion yields the alkyl halide (Figure 11.14). Knowing that an S l reaction is involved in the conversion of alcohols to alkyl halides makes it clear why the reaction works well only for tertiaiy alcohols Tertiary alcohols react fastest because they give the most stable carbocation intermediates. 

The initiator which has been studied most extensively (Scheme 33) is the dimethylcyclopentenyl cation, which is generated from the corresponding alcohol by reaction with protonic or Lewis acids. An... 

Epoxidations of chiral allenamides lead to chiral nitrogen-stabilized oxyallyl catioins that undergo highly stereoselective (4 + 3) cycloaddition reactions with electron-rich dienes.6 These are the first examples of epoxidations of allenes, and the first examples of chiral nitrogen-stabilized oxyallyl cations. Further elaboration of the cycloadducts leads to interesting chiral amino alcohols that can be useful as ligands in asymmetric catalysis (Scheme 2). 

Finally, a new water-soluble polyphosphazene was recently synthesized that has the structure shown in 36 (46). This polymer has two attributes as a biomedical macromolecule. First, the pendent carboxylic acid groups are potential sites for condensation reactions with amines, alcohols, phenols, or other carboxylic acid units to generate amide, ester, or anhydride links to polypeptides or bioactive small molecules. Second, polymer forms ionic crosslinks when brought into contact with di- or trivalent cations such as Ca or Ai3+. The crosslinking process converts the water-soluble polymer to a hydrogel, a process that can be reversed when the system... 

Apart from the alkyl halide-Lewis acid combination, two other sources of carbo-cations are often used in Friedel-Crafts reactions. Alcohols can serve as carbocation precursors in strong acids such as sulfuric or phosphoric acid. Alkylation can also be effected by alcohols in combination with BF3 or A1C13.37 Alkenes can serve as alkylating agents when a protic acid, especially H2S04, H3P04, and HF, or a Lewis acid, such as BF3 and A1C13, is used as a catalyst.38... 

In general, the Henry reaction proceeds in a non-selective way to give a mixture of anti (erythro) and syn (threo) isomers. Ab initio calculations on the Henry reaction suggest that free nitronate anions (not influenced by cations) react with aldehydes via transition states in which the nitro and carbonyl dipoles are antiperiplanar to each other. This kind of reaction yields anti-nitro alcohols. The Henry reaction between lithium nitronates and aldehydes is predicted to occur via cyclic transition states yielding syn-nitro alcohols as major products (Eq. 3.64).108... 

Ferrocenyl-substituted allenyl cations 28 were generated when 1,3-diferrocenyl-substituted secondary and ferrocenyl-substituted tertiary alcohols 29 were treated with trifluoroacetic acid27. These were rapidly converted into trifluoroacetoxyallylic ions by solvent addition the ions gave ferrocenyl-substituted enones by reaction with water (equation 8). 

Aryl(trimethylsiloxy)carbenes. Acylsilanes (153) undergo a photoinduced C —> O silyl shift leading to aryl(trimethylsiloxy)carbenes (154).73,74 The carbenes 154 can be captured by alcohols to form acetals (157) 73 or by pyridine to give transient ylides (Scheme 29).75 LFP of 153 in TFE produced transient absorptions of the carbocations 155 which were characterized by their reactions with nucleophiles.76 The cations 155 are more reactive than ArPhCH+, but only by factors < 10. Comparison of 154 and 155 with Ar(RO)C and Ar(RO)CH+, respectively, would be of interest. Although LFP was applied to generate methoxy(phenyl)carbene and to monitor its reaction with alcohols,77 no attempt was made to detect the analogous carbocation. 

Oxidative Animation of Nitrones to a-Amino-Substituted Nitroxyl Radicals Similar to the oxidative methoxylation reaction, oxidative animation of 4H -imidazole TV-oxides, in amine saturated alcohol solutions, give stable nitroxyl (282), nitronyl nitroxyl (283), imino nitroxyl (284) and (285) radicals with the amino group at the a-carbon atom of the nitroxyl group (Scheme 2.107) (520, 521). The observed influence of substituents on the ratio of animation products at C2 and C5 atom is close to the ratio observed in the previously mentioned oxidative methoxylation reaction. It allows us to draw conclusions about the preference of the radical cation reaction route. 

Ring opening reaction of alkylidenecyclopropanone acetals readily proceeds in the presence of Lewis or Bransted acids to produce l-alkylidene-2-oxyallyl cation, which is provided for the reaction with nucleophiles such as chloride, alcohols, siloxyalkenes, and furans. The reaction of this cation with the carbon nucleophiles gives products of [4 + 3] and [3 + 2] cycloaddition as well as those of nucleophilic addition. The modes of addition reactions are controlled by the oxy group of the cation and by the reaction conditions including solvent. 

Af-Acyliminium ions are known to serve as electron-deficient 4n components and undergo [4+2] cycloaddition with alkenes and alkynes.15 The reaction has been utilized as a useftil method for the construction of heterocycles and acyclic amino alcohols. The reaction can be explained in terms of an inverse electron demand Diels-Alder type process that involves an electron-deficient hetero-diene with an electron-rich dienophile. Af-Acyliminium ions generated by the cation pool method were also found to undergo [4+2] cycloaddition reaction to give adduct 7 as shown in Scheme 7.16 The reaction with an aliphatic olefin seems to proceed by a concerted mechanism, whereas the reaction with styrene derivatives seems to proceed by a stepwise mechanism. In the latter case, significant amounts of polymeric products were obtained as byproducts. The formation of polymeric byproducts can be suppressed by micromixing. 

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