Alkyl acetates, elimination reactions

Whereas nucleophilic substitution occurs on heating with water, aqueous potassium carbonate, silver oxide or sodium acetate, elimination reactions occur on heating an alkyl halide with ethanolic potassium hydroxide. Both unimolecular (El) and bimolecular (E2) pathways occur, the former with tertiary and the latter with primary and secondary halides. The reactions of alkyl halides with oxygen nucleophiles are summarized in Scheme 2.3. 

A-Alkylhydroxylamines react with substituted allyl acetates (e.g. 15, equation 11) in palladium catalyzed addition-elimination reactions giving the corresponding A-alkyl, A-allylhydroxylamines 16. The reaction proceeds with high regioselectivity but complete racemization. A similar reaction with 0-acyl hydroxamic acids has been carried out using allylic a-alkoxycarbonyloxyphosphonates. ... 

Jose and Riveros, 1977). This reaction becomes overshadowed in higher alkyl acetates because attack at the P-hydrogen to induce elimination as in... 

The target is now cyclopentanol. Alcohols can be prepared from alkyl halides by reaction with hydroxide ion as the nucleophile. Again, however, the combination of a strongly basic nucleophile and a secondary alkyl halide will result in an unacceptable amount of elimination. A better plan is to treat bromocyclopentane with acetate ion in an aprotic solvent such as DM SO. followed by cleavage of the ester to cyclopentanol ... 

In a variant of this method the acetals were used instead of aldehydes21-23. The modifications of this approach involve elimination reactions from other alkyl)amides where the leaving group X is an halogen atom24, alkoxy25 or cyano group26. 

A number of synthetically useful elimination reactions proceed thermally, with no base or acid required. These elimination reactions proceed through a concerted retro-ene mechanism. (The mechanism is sometimes called E,.) The thermal elimination of acetic acid from alkyl acetates and the elimination of RSCOSH from alkyl xanthates (the Chugaev reaction) are retro-ene reactions. 

Our laboratory has studied the stereochemistry of methyl group formation in a number of a, 0 elimination reactions of amino acids catalyzed by pyridoxal phosphate enzymes. The reactions include the conversions of L-serine to pyruvate with tryptophan synthase 02 protein (78) and tryptophanase (79), of L-serine and l-tyrosine with tyrosine phenol-lyase (80), and l-cystine with S-alkylcysteine lyase (81). In the latter study, the stereospecific isotopically labeled L-cystines were obtained enzymatically by incubation of L-serines appropriately labeled in the 3-position with the enzyme O-acetyl serine sulfhy-drase (82). The serines tritiated in the 3-position were prepared enzymatically starting from [l-3H]glucose and [l-3H]mannose by a sequence of reactions of known stereochemistry (81). The cysteines were then incubated with 5-alkyl-cysteine lyase in 2H20 as outlined in Scheme 19. The pyruvate was trapped as lactate, which was oxidized with K2Cr202 to acetate for analysis. Similarly, Cheung and Walsh (71) examined the conversion of D-serine to pyruvate with... 

E. P. Plueddemann (VoiO Coining) 1 agree that covalent bonds are almost certainly formed by reaction of alkoxy silanes with aluminum acetate surface with elimination of alkyl acetate. 

---