Alkenyl radicals

The mechanism includes two single electron transfers (steps 1 and 3) and two proton transfers (steps 2 and 4) Experimental evidence indicates that step 2 is rate determining and it is believed that the observed trans stereochemistry reflects the dis tribution of the two stereoisomeric alkenyl radical intermediates formed in this step... 

The more stable (E) alkenyl radical m which the alkyl groups R and R are trans to each other is formed faster than its Z stereoisomer Steps 3 and 4 which follow are fast and the product distribution is determined by the E-Z ratio of radicals produced m step 2... 

The stereochemistiy of reactions involving substituted alkenyl free radicals indicates that radicals formed at trigonal centers rapidly undergo interconversion with the geometric isomer. Reactions proceeding through alkenyl radical intermediates usually give rise to the same mixture from both the E- and the Z-precursor ... 

Several studies characterizing the reactions of alkenyl radicals with quinone dumines and quino-neimines were published in the late 1970s. Quinone dumines react with allylic radicals yielding both the reduced PPD and the alkylated product. In these experiments 2-methyl-2-pentene served as a model olefin (model for NR). Samples of the olefin and quinoneimines or quinone diimine were heated to 140°C. Isolation and analysis of products demonstrated that 40%-70% of the imine or diimine was reduced to the corresponding PPD, while 20%-50% was isolated as the alkylated product. This alkylation reaction (via an allylic radical) represents the pathway to the formation of rubber-bound antidegradant. ... 

The addition of a 2-methyl-2-penten-4-yl radical to the QDI (based on p-phenylene diamines [PPDs] thus producing the corresponding PPD radical) is highly exothermic. The reaction not only stabilizes the relatively unstable alkenyl radical, but also results in the aromatization of the diimino-cylcohexadienyl ring. The enthalpy of reaction for this reaction is calculated (using MOPAC/AMl Hamiltonian ) to be about —40 kcal/mol. 

The fact that the cyclization is directed toward an acetylenic group and leads to formation of an alkenyl radical is significant. Formation of a saturated iodide could lead to a more complex product mixture because the cyclized product could undergo iodine atom transfer and proceed to add to a second unsaturated center. Vinyl iodides are much less reactive and the reaction product is unreactive. Owing to the potential... 

Alkenyl radicals generated by addition of trialkylstannyl radicals to terminal alkynes can undergo cyclization with a nearby double bond. 

Alkenyl radicals generated by intramolecular addition to a triple bond can add to a nearby double bond, resulting in a tandem cyclization process. 

Feldman and Eastman have suggested that the kinamycins may by reductively activated to form reactive vinyl radical (25) and orf/to-quinone methide (26) intermediates (Scheme 3.2c) [16]. The authors provided convincing evidence that the alkenyl radical 25 is generated when the model substrate dimethyl prekinamycin (24) is exposed to reducing conditions (tri-n-butyltin hydride, AIBN). Products that may arise from addition of this radical (25) to aromatic solvents (benzene, anisole, and benzonitrile) were isolated. The ort/io-quinone methide 26 was also formed,... 

Rate constants at 65°C for ring closure of co-alkenyl radicals in the exo-mode (71) ... 

In addition to nucleophilic reactions, Baldwin s rules also apply to homo-lytic and cationic processes. Table 21 lists rate constants for ring closure of lower -alkenyl radicals (71), in which intramolecular addition to the double bond occurs in the exo-mode (Beckwith, 1981). It is unfortunate that EM-... 

Brown and Suzuki have shown that treatment of trialkylboranes with ethenyl-(Scheme 42, Eq. 42a) and ethynyloxiranes (Scheme 42, Eq. 42b) in the presence of a catalytic amount of oxygen, affords the corresponding allylic or allenic alcohols. The mechanism may involve the addition of alkyl radicals to the unsaturated system leading to l-(oxiranyl)alkyl and l-(oxiranyl)alkenyl radicals followed by rapid fragmentation to give alkoxyl radicals that finally complete the chain process by reacting with the trialkylborane [104-106]. 

In the propagation part, Bu3Sn- adds to the alkyne to give an alkenyl radical, which abstracts H- from Bu3SnH to give the product and to regenerate the starting radical. 

Radical ions - charged species with unpaired electrons - are easily generated by a number of methods that are discussed in more detail below. Their properties have been characterized by several spectroscopic techniques, and their structures and spin density contributions have been the subject of molecular orbital calculations at different levels of sophistication. The behaviour of radical ions in rearrangement and isomerization reactions as well as in bond-cleavage reactions has been extensively studied [for recent reviews see Refs. 11-13 and references cited therein]. Useful synthetic applications, such as the radical-cation-catalyzed cycloaddition [14-20] or the anfi-Markovnikov addition of nucleophiles to alkenyl radical cations [21-25], have been well documented. In... 

The proposed mechanism (Scheme 1) involves the mixed-valence compounds [Rh2" " ( Ji-cap)4(OH)] and [Rh2 (p.-cap)4(OOt-Bu)] formed from the homolytic cleavage of t-BuOOH. The t-BuOO radicals in the medium promote a selective hydrogen abstraction from the alkene to give the allylic alkenyl radical. This species traps the peroxide in [Rh2 (p.-cap)4 (OOt-Bu)] to produce the alkenyl hydroperoxide, which rapidly decomposes to the isolated products, thus regenerating the catalyst. 

The precursor was prepared via a lengthy sequence involving the elaboration of a Reformatsky adduct. The cyclic product was obtained as a 1.2 1 mixture of cis and trans isomers.The presence of the fluorine atoms had no effect on the efficiency of the cyclisation reaction. A subsequent study [384] extended the range of cyclisations to include trifluoromethyl alkyl and alkenyl radicals (Eq. 157). Free radical cyclisation reactions therefore show considerable promise for the rational synthesis of fluorinated carbocycles. 

---