Alkyl radicals review

Alkyl radicals produced by oxidative decarboxylation of carboxylic acids are nucleophilic and attack protonated azoles at the most electron-deficient sites. Thus imidazole and 1-alkylimidazoles are alkylated exclusively at the 2-position (80AHC(27)241). Similarly, thiazoles are attacked in acidic media by methyl and propyl radicals to give 2-substituted derivatives in moderate yields, with smaller amounts of 5-substitution. These reactions have been reviewed (74AHC(i6)123) the mechanism involves an intermediate cr-complex. 

Extensive reviews of the effects of fluonnation on stmeture and bonding are available [75, 76, 77], and only the charactenstic trends in bond strengths will be covered here. The bond energies cited are average values corrected for the revised heats of formation of alkyl radicals [78], but their precision is seldom better than 2 kcal/mol for the fluoro compounds. 

Diacyl or diaroy] peroxides (36, R- alkyl or aryl respectively) are given specific coverage in reviews by Fujimori,141 Bouillion et c//.,14 and Hiatt.14j They are sources of acyloxy radicals which in turn are sources of aryl or alkyl radicals. Commercially available peroxides of this type include dibenzoyl peroxide (BPO), didodecanoyl or dilauroyl peroxide (LPO), didecanoyl peroxide (42) and succinic acid peroxide (43). 

Primary radical termination involving alkyl radicals is described in Sections 2.5 and 7.4.3. Their reactions with monomers are also discussed in Sections 2.3 (fundamental aspects) and 4.5.4 (model propagation radicals). Their chemistry has been reviewed by Fischer and Radom/41 Giese,342,343 Tedder,344 Beckwith,345 Riichardt,76 and Tedder and Walton.346,347... 

Rate constants tor reactions of carbon-centered radicals tor the period through 1982 have been compiled by Lorand340 and Asmus and Bonifacio- 50 and for 1982-1992 by Roduner and Crocket.3 1 The recent review of Fischer and Radom should also be consulted.j41 Absolute rate constants for reaction with most monomers lie in the range 105-106 M"1 s"1. Rate data for reaction of representative primary, secondary, and tertiary alkyl radicals with various monomers are summarized in Table 3.6. 

In 1988 a paper by Zard and coworkers4(, reported that xanlhates were a convenient source of alkyl radicals by reversible addition-fragmentation and used the chemistry for the synthesis of a monoadduct to monomer (a maleimide). Many applications of the chemistry in organic synthesis have now been described in papers and reviews by the Zard group.406 407... 

The hydrogen abstraction from the Si-H moiety of silanes is fundamentally important for these reactions. Kinetic studies have been performed with many types of silicon hydrides and with a large variety of radicals and been reviewed periodically. The data can be interpreted in terms of the electronic properties of the silanes imparted by substituents for each attacking radical. In brevity, we compared in Figure 1 the rate constants of hydrogen abstraction from a variety of reducing systems by primary alkyl radicals at ca. 80°C. ... 

For a review that lists many rate constants for abstraction of hydrogen at various positions of many molecules, see Hendry, D.G. Mill, T. Piszkiewicz, L. Howard, J.A. Eigenmann, H.K. J. Phys. Chem. Ref. Data, 1974, 3, 937 Roberts, B.P. Steel, A.J. Tetrahedron Lett., 1993, 34, 5167. See Tanko, J.M. Blackett, J.F. J. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. 2,1996, 1775 for the absolute rate constants for abstraction of chlorine by alkyl radicals. 

Cr(II) has been used to bring about dehalogenation of alkyl halides involving the production of alkyl radicals, and details have been provided in a substantive review (Castro 1998). The ease of reduction is generally iodides > bromides > chlorides, while tertiary halides are the most reactive and primary halides the least (Castro and Kray 1963, 1966). 

Intramolecular addition of trialkylboranes to imines and related compounds have been reported and the main results are part of review articles [94, 95]. Addition of ethyl radicals generated from Et3B to aldimines affords the desired addition product in fair to good yield but low diaster control (Scheme 40, Eq. 40a) [96]. Similar reactions with aldoxime ethers [97], aldehyde hydrazones [97], and N-sulfonylaldimines [98] are reported. Radical addition to ketimines has been recently reported (Eq. 40b) [99]. Addition of triethylborane to 2H-azirine-3-carboxylate derivatives is reported [100]. Very recently, Somfai has extended this reaction to the addition of different alkyl radicals generated from trialkylboranes to a chiral ester of 2ff-azirine-3-carboxylate under Lewis acid activation with CuCl (Eq. 40c) [101]. 

A majority of radical addition occurs with electron-poor alkenes using alkyl halides in the presence of BusSnH. These reactions are feasible due to a proper matching between the radical acceptor and the donor. However, when the alkene is electron-rich and since simple alkyl radicals are considered as nucleophilic, the reaction is not a practical method for carbon-carbon bond formation. By applying the concept of polarity-reversal catalysis, an additional reagent is introduced which alleviates the mismatch between the partners and makes the reaction feasible. A few examples illustrating this concept have been described in this review. 

Rate constants for spin trapping of alkyl radicals measured by the procedures outlined here, are collected with other spin-trapping rate data in Table 5. It will be seen that most nitrone and nitroso traps scavenge reactive radicals of diverse types with rate constants generally in the range 10s-10 1 mol-1 s l. Of the nitroso-compounds, the nitroso-aromatics (except for the very crowded TBN) are particularly reactive, whilst MBN and DMPO are the most reactive nitrones. Much of the data for spin trapping by nitrones has been accumulated by Janzen and his colleagues, who have discussed in a short review how steric and electronic factors influence these reactions (Janzen et ai, 1978). 

The concept of this method is illustrated in Scheme 3.1, where the clock reaction (U R ) is the unimolecular radical rearrangement with a known rate constant ( r)- The rate constant for the H atom abstraction from RsSiH by a primary alkyl radical U can be obtained, provided that conditions are found in which the unrearranged radical U is partitioned between the two reaction channels, i.e., the reaction with RsSiH and the rearrangement to R. At the end of the reaction, the yields of unrearranged (UH) and rearranged (RH) products can be determined by GC or NMR analysis. Under pseudo-first-order conditions of silane concentration, the following relation holds UH/RH = (A H/A r)[R3SiH]. A number of reviews describe the radical clock approach in detail [3,4]. 

The usual sources used for the homolytic aromatic arylation have been utilized also in the heterocyclic series. They are essentially azo- and diazocompounds, aroyl peroxides, and sometimes pyrolysis and photolysis of a variety of aryl derivatives. Most of these radical sources have been described in the previous review concerning this subject, and in other reviews concerning the general aspects of homolytic aromatic arylation. A new source of aryl radicals is the silver-catalyzed decarboxylation of carboxylic acids by peroxydisulfate, which allows to work in aqueous solution of protonated heteroaromatic bases, as for the alkyl radicals. 

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