Alkylation, of aldehydes

The direct addition of simple alkyl groups to aldehydes is a challenging reaction to perform in water. Mitzel and coworkers reported the indium-mediated alkylation of carbonyl compounds with CT-sulfur stabihzed systems. Recently, Li and coworkers reported the first 

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OL Alkylation of aldehydes and ketones (Section 18.15) Alkylation of simple aldehydes and ketones via their enolates is difficult. p-Diketones can be converted quantitatively to their enolate anions, which react efficiently with primary alkyl halides. 

Table 25. Alkylation of Aldehydes in the Presence of Aprotic Chiral Additives...

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-... 

The reductive capability of CgK has been a subject of interest (LA). Uses for CgK include the reductive cleavage of carbon-sulfur bonds (S5), the reductive alkylation of nitriles and esters (S6), and the reductive alkylation of aldehydes and ketones (S7). The activity of CgK has... 

Alkylation and hydrolysis of imines alkylation of aldehydes 10-107 Alkylation and hydrolysis of dithianes 10-108 Alkylation and hydrolysis of oxazines and similar compounds 10-109 Reaction of diazo aldehydes with boranes... 

Alkylation of Aldehydes, Esters, Carboxylic Acids, Amides, and Nitriles... 

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. 

Just as enamines are more nucleophilic than enol ethers, imine anions are more nucleophilic than enolates and react efficiently with alkyl halides. One application of imine anions is for the alkylation of aldehydes. 

Woodward and co-workers recently achieved catalytic enantioselective alkylation of aldehydes with (R3Al)2 DABCO complexes or R3A1 (R = Me or Et) in the presence of Ni(acac)2/Feringa s ligand 196 (Equation (81 )).439... 

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... 

Pritchett et al.119 found that Ti(OPr )4 did not react with the bis(sulfon-amide) ligand itself, so they postulated that a chiral ligand initially reacted with the diethylzinc and was subsequently transferred to the titanium in the next step. Based on this assumption, they presented an improved procedure for the asymmetric alkylation of aldehyde to overcome the poor solubility of the li-... 

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. 

Alkylation of aldehydes.1 R(Pb in combination with 1 equiv. of TiCl4 adds selectively to aldehydes in CH2C12 at temperatures of - 78-0°. Yield of adducts is greater than 70% in the case of (QHs Pb or Bu4Pb. Ketones do not react with... 

ALKYLATIONS OF ALDEHYDES via REACTION OF THE MAGNESIOENAMINE SALT OF AN ALDEHYDE 2,2-DIMETHYL-3-PHENYLPROPI ON ALDEHYDE... 

Simple aliphatic nitriles, aldehydes, ketones and esters are not readily alkylated under liquiddiquid phase-transfer conditions. Direct alkylation of aldehydes under even mildly basic phase-transfer conditions has to compete with aldol and Cannizzaro reactions and yields are low and variable [e.g. 6], a,a-Disubstituted aldehydes are C-alkylated, e.g. formylcyclohexane has been alkylated (>70%) with a range of reagents using benzyltrimethylammonium isopropoxide as the basic catalyst [7], whereas a-unsubstituted alkanals tend to undergo aldol condensation under basic liquid liquid two-phase conditions [8]. 

A template (68) containing two aluminium centres, one nucleophilic and the other electrophilic, accelerates nucleophilic alkylation of aldehydes. ... 

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. 

SECTION 1.8. ALKYLATION OF ALDEHYDES, ESTERS, AMIDES, AND NITRILES... 

The formation of aldehyde enolates is complicated by the disposition of aldehydes to undergo aldol condensation. Therefore, there are very few examples of direct asymmetric alkylations of aldehydes. 

Asymmetric alkylation of aldehydes is possible via enamines or azaenolates of imine derivatives (see Section D. 1.1.1.4.). Alkylation is also possible via enol ethers or esters (see Section 1.1.1.3.1.2.), although the use of these methods for asymmetric synthesis has not yet been explored. 

Hydrolysis of enol esters 0-83 Reduction of acyl halides 0-84 Reduction of carboxylic acids, esters, or anhydrides 0-85 Reduction of amides 0-95 Alkylation and hydrolysis of imines, alkylation of aldehydes 0-97 Alkylation and hydrolysis of dithi-anes... 

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