Alkylation by aldehydes

Only one new carbon-carbon bond is formed by the methods described above two new carbon-carbon bonds are formed simultaneously if in such condensations the alcohol is replaced by a carbonyl compound, e.g.  

Such reactions, which will not be discussed further here, include the formation of diarylmethanes from an aldehyde and two molecules of an aromatic hydrocarbon, of triphenylmethane derivatives from an aldehyde and two molecules of an aromatic amine, and of phthaleins from phthalic anhydride and two molecules of phenol or resorcinol. 

This type of reaction includes also the formation of diarylacetic esters from glyoxalic esters and aromatic compounds, yields again being good.671 

Preparative importance attaches further to Hellmann and Dietrich s so-called asymmetric three-carbon condensation, in which, within certain limitations, two different compounds containing active methylene groups are linked together by formaldehyde with formation of two new carbon-carbon bonds. For example, dibenzoylmethane, dimethyl (acetylamino)malonate, and formaldehyde afford an 88% yield of dimethyl oc-(acetylamino)-oc-(2,2-di-benzoylethyl)malonate [ 1 -(acetylamino-3-benzoyl-4-oxo-4-phenyl-1,1 -butane-dicarboxylate].6 7 2 

A series of otherwise inaccessible compounds can be prepared in this 

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Polyurethanes (PU) The odor of many polyurethanes is caused by fishy smelling low molecular weight amines, mostly methylamines like trimethylamine, degradation products of the amine catalysts used during production. In some cases after evaporation of the fishy smelling amines, other odor qualities remain. One noticeable odor of PU samples was earthy, nutty, which can often be attributed to substituted pyrazines, formed by condensation of two a-aminoketones, subsequent oxidation or alkylation by aldehydes. One example is 2-ethyl-3,5-dimethylpyrazine (Mayer and Breuer, 2006). 

Amines can be reductively alkylated by aldehydes and ketones in the presence of hydrogen and a hydrogenation catalyst. 

Alkali metal iron carbonylates. An aqueous alcoholic solution of KHFe(CO)4 can be prepared from iron pentacarbonyl (1 mole) and KOH (3 moles). A THF solution of NaHFe(CO)4 can be prepared by the reaction of iron pentacarbonyl with sodium amalgam and then with water (1 mole). Amines can be alkylated by aldehydes in the presence of these reagents. One advantage of this procedure is that primary amines can be converted into either monoalkyl or dialkyl derivatives. ... 

There are relatively few reports of carbanion alkylation by aldehydes and ketones. Although the method is fraught with the difficulty of multiple condensations occurring as a side reaction, the condensation is useful in certain situations. Acetonitrile, for example, condenses cleanly and in good yield with benzaldehyde according to equation 10.25 to yield cinnamonitrile [35]. The reaction is a solid liquid phase transfer process in which the phase transfer agent is critical only in difficult cases. 

Variations and Improvements on Alkylations of Chiral OxazoUnes Metalated chiral oxazolines can be trapped with a variety of different electrophiles including alkyl halides, aldehydes,and epoxides to afford useful products. For example, treatment of oxazoline 20 with -BuLi followed by addition of ethylene oxide and chlorotrimethylsilane yields silyl ether 21. A second metalation/alkylation followed by acidic hydrolysis provides chiral lactone 22 in 54% yield and 86% ee. A similar... 

Dihydropyrans 88-90 are deprotonated at the vinylic position adjacent to oxygen by t-BuLi and the resulting anions add readily to alkyl halides, aldehydes, and ketones. Subsequent acid hydrolysis provides the products expected from reaction of an oj-functionalized pentanoyl anion 88 acts as HOCH2(CH2)3CO , 89 as 0CH(CH2)3C0 , and 90 as MeCO(CH2)3CO (77TL4187 81T3997). 

The polymer-bound catalysts A-C. (Table 31) are prepared by reaction of the corresponding amino alcohols with partially chloromethylated 1 -2% cross-linked polystyrene. In the case of A, the enantioselectivity of the addition of dialkylzincs to aldehydes is higher than with the corresponding monomeric ephedrine derivatives (vide supra). Interesting insights into the mechanism of the alkylation of aldehydes by dialkylzinc reagents can be obtained from the experi-... 

Amides are very weak nucleophiles, far too weak to attack alkyl halides, so they must first be converted to their conjugate bases. By this method, unsubstituted amides can be converted to N-substituted, or N-substituted to N,N-disubstituted, amides. Esters of sulfuric or sulfonic acids can also be substrates. Tertiary substrates give elimination. O-Alkylation is at times a side reaction. Both amides and sulfonamides have been alkylated under phase-transfer conditions. Lactams can be alkylated using similar procedures. Ethyl pyroglutamate (5-carboethoxy 2-pyrrolidinone) and related lactams were converted to N-alkyl derivatives via treatment with NaH (short contact time) followed by addition of the halide. 2-Pyrrolidinone derivatives can be alkylated using a similar procedure. Lactams can be reductively alkylated using aldehydes under catalytic hydrogenation... 

Vinylic sulfides containing an a hydrogen can also be alkylated by alkyl halides or epoxides. This is a method for converting an alkyl halide RX to an a,P unsaturated aldehyde, which is the synthetic equivalent of the unknown HC=CH—CHO ion. Even simple alkyl aryl sulfides RCH2SAr and RR CHSAr have been alkylated a to the sulfur. ... 

The imines are prepared by 16-12. The enamine salt method has also been used to give good yields of mono a alkylation of a,P-unsaturated ketones. Enamines prepared from aldehydes and butylisobutylamine can be alkylated by simple primary alkyl halides in good yields. N-alkylation in this case is presumably prevented by steric hindrance. 

This is not the only route to compounds such as (38). The Mannich reaction (p T 158) provides aldehydes and ketones (39) which can be reduced to (38) and its analogues or can be alkylated by the chloro-... 

Among the compounds capable of forming enolates, the alkylation of ketones has been most widely studied and applied synthetically. Similar reactions of esters, amides, and nitriles have also been developed. Alkylation of aldehyde enolates is not very common. One reason is that aldehydes are rapidly converted to aldol addition products by base. (See Chapter 2 for a discussion of this reaction.) Only when the enolate can be rapidly and quantitatively formed is aldol formation avoided. Success has been reported using potassium amide in liquid ammonia67 and potassium hydride in tetrahydrofuran.68 Alkylation via enamines or enamine anions provides a more general method for alkylation of aldehydes. These reactions are discussed in Section 1.3. 

Osmium tetroxide used in combination with sodium periodate can also effect alkene cleavage.191 Successful oxidative cleavage of double bonds using ruthenium tetroxide and sodium periodate has also been reported.192 In these procedures the osmium or ruthenium can be used in substoichiometric amounts because the periodate reoxidizes the metal to the tetroxide state. Entries 1 to 4 in Scheme 12.18 are examples of these procedures. Entries 5 and 6 show reactions carried out in the course of multistep syntheses. The reaction in Entry 5 followed a 5-exo radical cyclization and served to excise an extraneous carbon. The reaction in Entry 6 followed introduction of the allyl group by enolate alkylation. The aldehyde group in the product was used to introduce an amino group by reductive alkylation (see Section 5.3.1.2). 

The preparation of resin-bound nitroalkenes via a microwave-assisted Knoevenagel reaction of resin-bound nitroacetic acid with aryl and alkyl substituted aldehydes is reported. The potential of these resin-bound nitroalkenes for application in combinatorial chemistry is demonstrated by a Diels-Alder reaction with 2,3-dimethylbutadiene (Scheme 8.9). It is also used for one-pot three-component tandem [4+2]/[3+2] reactions with ethyl vinyl ether and styrene 46... 

The procedure employed has been previously described by Cason and Rinehart,3 and is a modification of the standard Reformatsky procedure.9-10 The Reformatsky reaction, which has been reviewed elsewhere,9 has been widely employed with ketones, somewhat less frequently with aldehydes, and very seldom with a-alkyl aliphatic aldehydes. 

Nucleophilic addition of metal alkyls to carbonyl compounds in the presence of a chiral catalyst has been one of the most extensively explored reactions in asymmetric synthesis. Various chiral amino alcohols as well as diamines with C2 symmetry have been developed as excellent chiral ligands in the enantiose-lective catalytic alkylation of aldehydes with organozincs. Although dialkylzinc compounds are inert to ordinary carbonyl substrates, certain additives can be used to enhance their reactivity. Particularly noteworthy is the finding by Oguni and Omi103 that a small amount of (S)-leucinol catalyzes the reaction of diethylzinc to form (R)-l-phenyl-1 -propanol in 49% ee. This is a case where the... 

BINOL and related compounds have proved to be effective catalysts for a variety of reactions. Zhang et al.106a and Mori and Nakai106b used an (R)-BINOL-Ti(OPr )4 catalyst system in the enantioselective diethylzinc alkylation of aldehydes, and the corresponding secondary alcohols were obtained with high enantioselectivity. This catalytic system works well even for aliphatic aldehydes. Dialkylzinc addition promoted by TifOPr1 in the presence of (R)- or (A)-BINOL can give excellent results under very mild conditions. Both conversion of the aldehyde and the ee of the product can be over 90% in most cases. The results are summarized in Table 2-14. 

This epoxide to aldehyde rearrangement was postulated to be the first step in the silver-mediated reaction of alkylzirconocene chlorides with epoxides, in which the aldehyde is subsequently alkylated by the alkylzirconocene species (cf. Scheme 8.44) [56], In a control experiment, it was shown that zirconocene dichloride (1 equivalent or less) and silver (catalytic amounts) do indeed induce the rearrangement of an epoxide to an aldehyde very quickly. 

Scheme 3.7. Diastereoselective formation of /S-silyl ( )- or (Z)-ester enolates by silylcuprate conjugate addition followed by alkylation with aldehydes [49]. Stereoselective synthesis of ( )-and (Z)-allyl silanes [50].

Radical cyclization of polyfunctional 5-hexenyl halides mediated by Et2Zn and catalyzed by nickel or palladium salts has been demonstrated to produce stereoselectively polyfunctional 5-membered carbo- and heterocycles [56, 57]. Based on this strategy a formal synthesis of methylenolactocin (11) was achieved (Scheme 20). The acetal 130, readily being built up by asymmetric alkylation of aldehyde 127 followed by reaction with butyl vinyl ether and NBS, served as the key intermediate for the construction of the lactone ring. Nickel(II)-catalyzed carbometallation was initiated with diethylzinc to yield exclusively the frans-disubstituted lactol 132, which could be oxidized directly by air to 134. Final oxidation under more forcing conditions then yielded the lactone (-)-75 as a known intermediate in the synthesis of (-)-methylenolactocin (11) [47aj. 

Umkehrer et al. developed the synthesis of tetrazolopiperazine building blocks 178 via Ugi five-center-four-component reaction (U-5C-4CR) of primary amines 179, aldehydes 180, trimethylsilylazide 181, and 2-isocyanoethyltosylate 182 [54]. The in situ generated secondary amine finally gets alkylated by the toluenesulfo-nate, leading to the expected fused tetrazoles 178 (Scheme 31). The primary amines and the aldehydes can be varied broadly, which allows to produce products with two potential diversity points. 

The procedure described here provides a convenient route to aldehydes with trithiane serving as an inexpensive, masked carbonyl group.2-4 The reaction is limited, however, to the use of primary alkyl halides, aldehydes, and ketones for elaboration of the carbon chain through attack on the metallated trithiane. Examples of aldehydes synthesized by this method are given in Table I. 

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