Alkynes zinc enolate addition

One of the first examples of addition of a zinc enolate to an alkyne was a report dealing with the zinc or cadmium stearate-catalyzed addition of substituted malonates to acetylene under pressure250. Later, Schultze described the intermolecular nucleophilic addition of the zinc enolate derived from diethyl bromomalonate to phenylacetylene in refluxing xylene leading to the alkylidene malonate 392 (equation 171)251. 

Recently, Nakamura and coworkers described a related reaction of the zinc enolates derived from /3-aminocrotonamides of type 395256. In the presence of a stoichiometric amount of Et2Zn, the latter underwent smooth addition to terminal alkynes upon heating in hexane and afforded the corresponding tetrasubstituted 2-alkylidene acetoacetamides 396 (after acidic hydrolysis of the imine) with high (Z)-stereoselectivity (equation 173). 

The addition of carboxylic acids to alkynes affords enol esters which are useful as intermediates in organic synthesis.470 As in the addition to alkenes, a catalyst is usually required for high conversions of alkynes to enol esters. Simple acid catalysis has been employed (equation 279),471 but the more common catalysts are Lewis acids, such as boron trifluoride etherate,472 silver nitrate,473 zinc acetate474 and zinc oxide (equations 280 and 281),47S-476... 

Methylene difluorocyclopropanes are relatively rare and their rearrangement chemistry has been reviewed recently [14]. In addition, electron deficient alkenes such as sesquiterpenoid methylene lactones may be competent substrates. Two crystal structures of compounds prepared in this way were reported recently [15,16]. Other relatively recent methods use dibromodifluoromethane, a relatively inexpensive and liquid precursor. Dolbier and co-workers described a simple zinc-mediated protocol [17], while Balcerzak and Jonczyk described a useful reproducible phase transfer catalysed procedure (Eq. 6) using bromo-form and dibromodifluoromethane [18]. The only problem here appears to be in separating cyclopropane products from alkene starting material (the authors recommend titration with bromine which is not particularly amenable for small scale use). Schlosser and co-workers have also described a mild ylide-based approach using dibromodifluoromethane [19] which reacts particularly well with highly nucleophilic alkenes such as enol ethers [20], and remarkably, with alkynes [21] to afford labile difluorocyclopropenes (Eq. 7). 

A novel use of a wide range of nitriles as mediator has enabled the regioselective inter-molecular addition of unstabilized zinc ester enolates to 1-alkynes and l.S-enynes. " This reaction was made possible by a reversible addition of enolates to a nitrile (Blaise reaction), generating a zinc aza-enolate that, unlike zinc ester enolates, can add inter-molecularly to 1-alkynes and 1,3-enynes. Subsequent removal of the nitrile through a retro-Blaise reaction has generated the targeted addition product. 

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