Alkenes organolithiums

A more promising procedure for the formation of alkenes from tosylhydrazones is represented by the Shapiro reaction It differs from the Bamford-Stevens reaction by the use of an organolithium compound (e.g. methyl lithium) as a strongly basic reagent ... 

By application of the most common procedure—i.e by using an a-silylated organolithium or magnesium reagent—the /3-hydroxysilane 5a/5b can be isolated. However in the case of M = Na or K, the alkoxide oxygen in 4a/4b is of strong ionic character, and a spontaneous elimination step follows to yield directly the alkene 3. 

Elimination to yield alkenes can be induced thermally or by treatment with acids or bases (for one possible mechanism, see Figure 3.39) [138,206]. Less common thermal demetallations include the thermolysis of arylmethyloxy(phenyl)carbene complexes, which can lead to the formation of aryl-substituted acetophenones [276]. Further, (difluoroboroxy)carbene complexes of molybdenum, which can be prepared by treating molybdenum hexacarbonyl with an organolithium compound and then with boron trifluoride etherate at -60 °C, decompose at room temperature to yield acyl radicals [277]. 

Compound 388 is an acylating agent for electron-deficient alkenes, in a Michael addition process. It is formed by treating molybdenum hexacarbonyl with an organolithium compound, followed by quenching the intermediate 387 with boron trifluoride (equation 104). The structure of 388 (R = Ph) can be elucidated by NMR spectroscopy. Other examples of enantioselective and diastereoselective Michael-type additions involving lithium-containing intermediates in the presence of chiral additives can be found elsewhere in the literature . 

In contrast to the bromo and iodo analogs, organic chloro compounds are relatively inert toward organolithium reagents. There are only a few classes of chlorinated substrates, notably gm-dichlorocyclopropanes , l,l-dichloro-l-alkenes ° and doubly vicinal oligochlorobenzenes (1,2,3-trichlorobenzene , 1,2,3,4-tetrachlorobenzene , hexachlorobenzene etc.) that are capable of sustaining the halogen/lithium permutation mode. 

Asymmetric conjugate addition to a variety of electrophilic alkenes using chiral organolithium-ligand complexes are summarized in Table 10. The complexes 34 and 35 prefer... 

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