Alkynes copper derivatives

Coupling is an important reaction of alkynes that leads to di-ynes. It occurs under a variety of condi-tions,32 but is particularly important when alkynylcopper derivatives are involved. Two classical alkyne coupling reactions involve copper derivatives. In the Glaser reaction,33 where an alkyne such as phenylacetylene reacts with basic cupric chloride (CuCl2), subsequent air oxidation gives a diyne (in this case 26 in 90% yield). 

Reactions via Copper Reagents and Cuprates. The conjugate addition reactions of the copper-derived reagents prepared from PhMe2SiLi, their addition reactions with alkynes and al-lenes, and their use in displacements of aUyl halides and esters are covered in the relevant sections. 

Organometallics may be coupied with aryi and vinyi haiides in the presence of palla-dium(O) complexes. Organometaiiics include derivatives of Mg, Zn, Sn, B, and copper derivatives of alkynes. 

A unique method to generate the pyridine ring employed a transition metal-mediated 6-endo-dig cyclization of A-propargylamine derivative 120. The reaction proceeds in 5-12 h with yields of 22-74%. Gold (HI) salts are required to catalyze the reaction, but copper salts are sufficient with reactive ketones. A proposed reaction mechanism involves activation of the alkyne by transition metal complexation. This lowers the activation energy for the enamine addition to the alkyne that generates 121. The transition metal also behaves as a Lewis acid and facilitates formation of 120 from 118 and 119. Subsequent aromatization of 121 affords pyridine 122. 

Fleming has shown (2) that the cuprate reagent (Chapter 8) derived from dimethylphenylsilyl lithium and copper(t) cyanide (molar ratio 2 1) adds regioselectively in an overall syn manner to terminal alkynes, the silyl moiety becoming attached to the terminal carbon atom (variation in reagent... 

Esters of a-diazoalkylphosphonic acids (95) show considerable thermal stability but react with acids, dienophiles, and triphenylphosphine to give the expected products. With olefinic compounds in the presence of copper they give cyclopropane derivatives (96), but with no such compounds present vinylphosphonic esters are formed by 1,2-hydrogen shift, or, when this route is not available, products such as (97) or (98) are formed, resulting from insertion of a carbenoid intermediate into C—C or C—H bonds. The related phosphonyl (and phosphoryl) azides (99) add to electron-rich alkynes to give 1,2,3-triazoles, from which the phosphoryl group is readily removed by hydrolysis. 

The addition of terminal alkynes to carbon-carbon double bonds has not been explored until recently, possibly because C=C double bonds are not as good electrophiles as C=N or C=0. In 2003, Carreira et al. reported the first conjugate addition reaction of terminal alkynes to C=C catalyzed by copper in water. The reaction proceeded with derivatives of Meldrum s acid in water in the presence of Cu(OAc)2 and sodium ascorbate (Eq. 4.35).59 However, this method was limited to C=C double bonds with two electron withdrawing groups. 

Ethyl diazopyruvate, under copper catalysis, reacts with alkynes to give furane-2-carboxylates rather than cyclopropenes u3) (Scheme 30). What looks like a [3 + 2] cycloaddition product of a ketocarbenoid, may actually have arisen from a primarily formed cyclopropene by subsequent copper-catalyzed ring enlargement. Such a sequence has been established for the reaction of diazoacetic esters with acetylenes in the presence of certain copper catalysts, but metallic copper, in these cases, was not able to bring about the ring enlargement14). Conversely, no cyclopropene derivative was detected in the diazopyruvate reaction. 

Click chemistry has been particularly active in various fields this year. For example, ample applications of click chemistry have been seen in carbohydrate chemistry. Various /weiido-oligosacchardies and amino acid glycoconjugates were synthesized via an intermolecular 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction using easily accessible carbohydrate and amino acid derived azides and alkynes as building blocks <06JOC364>. The iterative copper(I)-catalyzed... 

The aforementioned dienyl dicopper derivatives show the characteristic reactivity of orga-nocopper compounds. However, one limitation to the use of copper is that an electron-withdrawing group is usually required for reaction with alkynes. In order to develop an insertion protocol for alkynes bearing electron-donating groups, transmetalation of zirco-nacyclopentadienes to nickel was investigated. 

More attractive copper-catalyzed (mediated) transformations of allenes into alkynes were reported by Caporusso and co-workers [27f, 73-75], Allenes 142 were converted into alkynes 143 by treatment with stoichiometric amounts of a cuprate species, as exemplified in Scheme 14.35. The problem of regioselective formation of either alkyne 143 or allene 144 was solved by the proper choice of the organometallic species. Preferential formation of alkynes 143 could be achieved employing cuprates such as R3Cu(CN)ZnCl-LiCl, which are prepared from organozinc compounds. On the other hand, reactions of organomagnesium derived cuprates (R3CuBr)Mg-LiBr mostly provided allenes 144 as major components. 

Triphenylbismuthonium ylide reacted with terminal alkynes in the presence of a catalytic amount of copper(I) chloride to form furan derivatives (Scheme 11) [27]. Although the yields were low, the products were obtained regioselectively. The reaction was sensitive to steric factors, and internal alkynes did not provide the product. A carbenoid intermediate was probably involved in the reaction. 

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