Alcohols, carbonylation conjugate addition

Conjugate addition of norpethidine (81) to benzoylethylene gives the ketone, 93. Reduction of the carbonyl group to the alcohol affords the potent analgesic phenoperidine (94). ... 

The Pd-catalysed carbonylation of alkynyl epoxides 60 and alkynyldioxolanones 61 leads to the allenes 62 which can then be converted to the same pyranones through a tandem conjugate addition-cyclisation (Scheme 40) <00JCS(P1)3188>. Carbonylation of allenyl alcohols is catalysed by Ru3(CO)i2 and yields 5,6-dihydropyran-2-ones . 

Trialkyl phosphites readily undergo conjugate addition with a,(3-unsaturated carbonyl compounds in the presence of a proton source, such as a protic solvent.359 The use of a protic solvent, such as an alcohol, obviates the difficulties found in the performance of the simple Abramov-type reaction with a,(3-unsaturated carbonyl compounds.189198 In alcohol medium, an ether is generated as a by-product in the dealkylation process (Equation 3.22). 

Reactions where NLE have been discovered include Sharpless asymmetric epoxi-dation of allylic alcohols, enantioselective oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides, Diels-Alder and hetero-Diels-Alder reactions, carbonyl-ene reactions, addition of MesSiCN or organometallics on aldehydes, conjugated additions of organometal-lics on enones, enantioselective hydrogenations, copolymerization, and the Henry reaction. Because of the diversity of the reactions, it is more convenient to classify the examples according to the types of catalyst involved. 

Conjugate addition of methanol to a,/l-unsaturated carbonyl compounds forms a new carbon-oxygen bond to yield valuable ethers (Scheme 26). Kabashima et al. (12) reported the conjugate addition of methanol to 3-buten-2-one on alkaline oxides, hydroxides, and carbonates at a temperature of 273 K. The activities of the catalyst follow the order alkaline earth metal oxides > alkaline earth metal hydroxides > alkaline earth metal carbonates. All alkaline earth metal oxides exhibited high catalytic activities and, as in alcohol condensations and nitroaldol reactions, their catalytic activities were not much affected by exposure to CO2 and air. 

According to the Lewis theory, alkaline earth metal hydroxides are weaker bases than their oxides, the order of the strength of the basic sites being Ba(OH)2> SrO(OH)2 > Ca(OH)2 > Mg(OH)2. The hydroxides have been used recently as solid catalysts for organic transformations, such as the conjugate addition of methanol to a, S-unsaturated carbonyl compounds (12), cyanoethylation of alcohols (163,164), and transesterification reactions (166,167,171,172) which are described above. The extensive work of Sinisterra et al. (282) on the number and nature of sites and on the catalytic activity of the most basic alkali metal hydroxide, Ba(OH)2, is emphasized. It was found that commercial barium hydroxide octahydrate can be converted into... 

The ( + )- or ( —)-alcohol is prepared by Cul-catalyzed conjugate addition of C6H5MgBr to ( —) or (+ )-pulegone, respectively, followed by reductionof the carbonyl group with sodium-isopropanol.1... 

Tamaru and Kimura have recently developed a three-component coupling reaction of carbonyl compounds, 1,3-dienes, and dimethylzinc leading to homoallylic alcohols 30 via Ni-catalyzed conjugate addition of the carbonyl compound to the 1,3-diene in a 1,4-fashion (Scheme 8.11) [44], They later showed that 1,3-dienes... 

Acid catalysts promote conjugate addition of alcohols to a, p unsaturated carbonyl compounds by protonating the carbonyl group and making the conjugated system more electrophilic. Methanol adds to this ketone exceptionally well, for example, in the presence of an acid catalyst known as Dowex 50 . This is an acidic resin—just about as acidic as sulfuric acid in fact, but completely insoluble, and therefore very easy to remove from the product at the end of the reaction by filtration. 

Mechanistically, alcohol carbonylation reactions catalyzed by the HCo(CO)4/ Co(CO)4 system appear to be governed by several features which are unique to this system. In particular, the high inherent acidity of the HCo(CO)4 species (45), coupled with the nucleophilicity of the conjugate base (55), is responsible for the activation of the substrate and formation of the alkyl-cobalt bond. In addition, the facility of homolytic cleavage of cobalt-carbon bonds (46, 47) may be responsible for the complications in selectivity not normally observed with other systems. 

Small amounts of ethylenic groups are present in in situ lignin mainly as components of unattached cinnamaldehyde and cinnamyl alcohol end groups (I and 11, respectively, Table 7.3.1) (Lai and Sarkanen 1971). Additionally, the presence of carbonyl-conjugated ethylenic groups as elements of p-quinonoid (Pew and Connors 1971) and o-quinonoid (Harkin 1966) ring systems has been proposed. 

As fas as reaction conditions are concerned, two main approaches are usually taken. Either the nucleophilicity of the R5OH to be added is further enhanced by addition of base (normally R50 M +, or nitrogen bases of low nucleophilicity), i.e., base catalysis, or the electrophilicity of the accepting double bond is further increased by adding, e.g., mercuric salts (alkoxymercu-ration), or sources of halonium ions (formation of / -halohydrins). Clearly, the latter protocol, from now on abbreviated as "onium-methods , necessitates a subsequent step for the removal of the auxiliary electrophile, e.g., reductive demercuration of an intermediate /i-alkoxymercu-rial. Whereas base catalysis has successfully been employed with all varieties of acceptors, application of onium-methods thus far appears to be restricted to a,/ -unsaturated carbonyl compounds. Interestingly, conjugate addition of alcohols to a,/l-enones could also be effected photochemically in a couple of cases. 

Enol Amination. The Cu[(S,5)-t-Bu-box] (OTf)2 complex was found to be optimal for promoting the enantioselective conjugated addition of enolsilanes to azodicarboxylate derivatives (eq 13). This methodology provides an enantioselective catalytic route to differentially protected ot-hydrazino carbonyl compounds. Isomerically pure enolsilanes of aryl ketones, acylpyrroles, and thioesters add to the azo-imide in greater than 95% ee. The use of an alcohol additive was critical to achieve catalyst turnover. Amination of cyclic enolsilanes was also possible. For example, the enolsilane of 2-methylindanone provides the adduct containing a tetrasubstituted stereogenic center in 96% ee and high yield. Acyclic (Z)-enolsilanes react in the presence of a protic additive with enantioselection up to 99%. ... 

Alcohols add to conjugated ketones with a PMe3 catalyst to give the p-alkoxy ketone.The conjugate addition of peroxide anions (HOO and ROO ) to cx,p-unsaturated carbonyl compounds is discussed in 15-48. 

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