Alkenes continued allylic

Following the discovery of the ene reaction of singlet molecular oxygen ( Ap (Scheme 15) in 1953 by Schenck [88], this fascinating reaction continues to receive considerable mechanistic attention today. The importance of a path via the perepoxide intermediate or a perepoxide-Iike transition state [13] or the perepoxide quasi-intermediate [70] was proposed for the ene reactions of singlet oxygen with alkenes affording allylic hydroperoxides. 

Although the Sharpless catalyst was extremely useful and efficient for allylic alcohols, the results with ordinary alkenes were very poor. Therefore the search for catalysts that would be enantioselective for non-alcoholic substrates continued. In 1990, the groups of Jacobsen and Katsuki reported on the enantioselective epoxidation of simple alkenes both using catalysts based on chiral manganese salen complexes [8,9], Since then the use of chiral salen complexes has been explored in a large number of reactions, which all utilise the Lewis acid character or the capacity of oxene, nitrene, or carbene transfer of the salen complexes (for a review see [10]). 

The specific construction of trisubstituted alkenes is a continuing challenge. Shigeru Nishiyama of Keio University has described (Tetrahedron Lett. 2004, 45, 8273) the specific bromination-dehydrobromination of the allylic ester 9, delivering 10 as a 60 1 mixture of geometric isomers. Pd-mediated coupling led to the ester 11. 

The first example of a catalytic approach to the selenium promoted conversion was reported by Torii, who described an oxyselenenylation-deselenenylation process using catalytic amounts of diphenyl diselenide [115]. The electrophilic species was produced from the diselenide by electrochemical oxidation in the presence of the alkene 233 in methanol or in water. As indicated in Scheme 36, the addition product is electrochemically oxidized to afford the selenoxide which by elimination gives the allylic ether or alcohol 234 and the phenylselene-nic acid which continues the cycle by adding again to the alkene 233. 

Much more efficient is a chain reaction. If we add the allylic radical to the alkene of the allylic chloride, we can create a chain. The chloride radical released is used to abstract a hydrogen atom from the next molecule of alkene and the chain continues. 

The discussion of cis-trans photoisomerization of alkenes, styrene, stilbene, and dienes has served to introduce some important ideas about the interpretation of photochemical reactions. We see that thermal barriers are usually low, so that reactions are very fast. Because excited states are open-shell species, they present new kinds of structures, such as the twisted and pyramidalized CIs that are associated with both isomerization and rearrangement of alkenes. However, we will also see familiar structural units as we continue our discussion of photochemical reactions. Thus the triplet diradical involved in photosensitized isomerization of dienes is not an unanticipated species, given what we have learned about the stabilization of allylic radicals. 

As one of the fundamental bond constructions, the carbonyl-ene reaction - between an aldehyde and an alkene bearing an allylic hydrogen - attracts considerable attention [1] from the synthetic community. Given the versatile chemistry of the product homoallylic alcohols, both the intra- and intermolecular versions of asymmetric carbonyl-ene reactions are valuable processes. [2] Within the catalytic field, [3] the continuing development of chiral Lewis acids further advances the utility and scope of carbonyl-ene chemistry. We wish to highlight a number of these developments. 

---