Allyl radicals oxidation

This scheme can be extended by using mixtures of dienes with electron-deficient alkenes such as acrylonitrile. Due to its nucleophilic nature, addition of radical 68 to acrylonitrile is faster than addition to butadiene. The resulting ambiphilic adduct radical then adds to butadiene to form a relatively unreactive allyl radical. Oxidation and trapping of the allyl cation by methanol lead, as before, to products such as 72 and 73, which are composed of four components the radical precursor 67, acrylonitrile, butadiene and methanol (equation 30)17,94. 

The successful preparation of structural analogues of raised the hope that the chemistry of ammoxidation might also be reproduced in solution under mild laboratory conditions suitable for mechanistic studies. Thus we turned our attention to the critical C-N bond formation step to find out whether one can indeed produce ammoxidized product from a radical with a d imido metal center. For our studies diimido complexes (t-B iN)2M(OSiMe3)2 (M = Cr, Mo) [8,9] were selected as models for the postulated active sites in ammoxidation. Benzyl rather than allyl radicals were chosen for study since the products of allyl radical oxidation are not expected to be stable under our reaction conditions and because benzyl and allyl exhibit similar behavior in oxidation reactions [14]. Indeed, when a solution of (t-BuN)2M(OSiMe3)2 in toluene was heated at 100 C in the presence of benzoyl peroxide as a radical initiator, benzylidene-t-butylamine was obtained in up to 52% yield (Table I). The remaining organic products were C02> bibenzyl, and the expected isomeric distribution of (ortho meta para = 63 21 16) of methylbiphenyls. 

An example of this reaction is the reaction of cyclohexene with t-butyl perbenzoate, which is mediated by Cu(I). " The initial step is the reductive cleavage of the perester. The t-butoxy radical then abstracts hydrogen from cyclohexene to give an allylic radical. The radical is oxidized by Cu(II) to the carbocation, which captures benzoate ion. The net effect is an allylic oxidation. 

It has been reported that molecnlar oxygen plays an important role in the allylic oxidation of olefins with TBHP (25, 26). Rothenberg and coworkers (25) proposed the formation of an alcoxy radical via one-electron transfer to hydroperoxide, Equation 4, as the initiation step of the allylic oxidation of cyclohexene in the presence of molecnlar oxygen. Then, the alcoxy radical abstracts an allylic hydrogen from the cyclohexene molecnle. Equation 5. The allylic radical (8) formed reacts with molecular oxygen to yield 2-cyclohexenyl hydroperoxide... 

Several pieces of mechanistic evidence implicate allylic radicals or cations as intermediates in these oxidations. Thus 14C in cyclohexene is distributed in the product cyclohexenone indicating that a symmetrical allylic intermediate is involved at some stage.159... 

The dependence of relative rates in radical addition reactions on the nucleophilicity of the attacking radical has also been demonstrated by Minisci and coworkers (Table 7)17. The evaluation of relative rate constants was in this case based on the product analysis in reactions, in which substituted alkyl radicals were first generated by oxidative decomposition of diacyl peroxides, then added to a mixture of two alkenes, one of them the diene. The final products were obtained by oxidation of the intermediate allyl radicals to cations which were trapped with methanol. The data for the acrylonitrile-butadiene... 

Only a few examples exist for the intermolecular trapping of allyl radicals with alkenes68,69. The reaction of a-carbonyl allyl radical 28 with silyl enol ether 29 occurs exclusively at the less substituted allylic terminus to form, after oxidation with ceric ammonium nitrate (CAN) and desilylation of the adduct radical, product 30 (equation 14). Formation of terminal addition products with /ram-con figuration has been observed for reaction of 28 with other enol ethers as well. 

The trapping of allyl radicals with other open-shell species can be studied in all reactions in which a sufficiently high concentration of radicals is created and in which the concentration of nonradical trapping agents is low. This prerequisite has been met in Kolbe electrolysis reactions, in which radicals are generated by one-electron oxidation of carboxylate anions. One of the simplest systems, the reaction of methyl radicals with... 

Further variations of the general scenario described in Scheme 4 consist in trapping adduct radical 48 before oxidation occurs7. This can be achieved if intramolecular radical additions are possible, as is the case in radical 62. Oxidation of 62 to the corresponding allyl cation is slower than 6-ew-cyclization to the chlorobenzene ring to form radical 63, which subsequently is oxidized to yield tetrahydronaphthalene 64 as the main product (equation 27). This sequence does not work well for other dienes such as 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene, for which oxidation of the intermediate allyl radical is too rapid to allow radical cyclization onto the aromatic TT-system. 

Iron(II) salts, usually in conjunction with catalytic amounts of copper(II) compounds, have also been used to mediate radical additions to dienes91,92. Radicals are initially generated in these cases by reductive cleavage of peroxyesters of hydroperoxides to yield, after rearrangement, alkyl radicals. Addition to dienes is then followed by oxidation of the allyl radical and trapping by solvent. Hydroperoxide 67, for example, is reduced by ferrous sulfate to acyclic radical 68, which adds to butadiene to form adduct radical 69. Oxidation of 69 by copper(H) and reaction of the resulting allyl cation 70 with methanol yield product 71 in 61% yield (equation 29). 

The concentration of copper(II) has a pronounced effect on the course of the reaction. In the presence of very low copper(II) concentrations, oxidation of allyl radical 69 is slow and major amounts of allyl radical dimer are formed. In the presence of very high concentrations of copper(II), radical 68 is oxidized rapidly before addition to diene can take place. An optimum yield of product 71 can therefore only be achieved at certain copper(II) concentrations. The metal-ion-promoted addition of chloramines to butadiene appears to follow the same mechanism93. 

For completeness, it must also be noted that the oxidation of enolizable compounds and intermediate allyl radicals can be achieved electrochemically54b. The resulting product mixtures, however, proved much more complex as compared to oxidation by transition metal salts. 

Schafer reported that the electrochemical oxidation of silyl enol ethers results in the homo-coupling products. 1,4-diketones (Scheme 25) [59], A mechanism involving the dimerization of initially formed cation radical species seems to be reasonable. Another possible mechanism involves the decomposition of the cation radical by Si-O bond cleavage to give the radical species which dimerizes to form the 1,4-diketone. In the case of the anodic oxidation of allylsilanes and benzylsilanes, the radical intermediate is immediately oxidized to give the cationic species, because oxidation potentials of allyl radicals and benzyl radicals are relatively low. But in the case of a-oxoalkyl radicals, the oxidation to the cationic species seems to be retarded. Presumably, the oxidation potential of such radicals becomes more positive because of the electron-withdrawing effect of the carbonyl group. Therefore, the dimerization seems to take place preferentially. 

The phenylselenyl radical adds irreversibly to the central carbon atom of 2-methylbuta-l, 2-diene (Id) with a rate constant of 3 x 106 M-1 s-1 (23 1 °C) (Scheme 11.7) [45], On a synthetic scale, PhSe addition to cumulated Jt-bonds has been investigated by oxidizing phenylselenol with air in the presence of mono-, 1,1-di- or 1,3-di-substituted allenes to provide products of selective fi-addition. Trapping of 2-phenyl -selenyl-substituted allyl radicals with 02 did not interfere with the hydrogen atom delivery from PhSeH (Scheme 11.7) [31]. 

Allylic intermediate, 27 185-187 ii-Allylic nickel intermediates, 33 15-18, 22 Allylic oxidation, see Oxidation, allylic Allylic species, 30 21 formation, isomerization, 30 18-19 free allyl radicals, 30 149 a-hydrogen abstraction, 30 147 Allyl methacrylate oxidation, 41 305 Allyls... 

Allylic CH bonds Aliphatic alkenes frequently undergo allylic substitution by oxidation of the double bond to a radical cation that undergoes deprotonation at the allylic position and subsequent oxidation of the resulting allyl radical to a cation, which finally combines with the nucleophiles from the electrolyte [21, 22]. The selectivity is mostly low. Regioselec-tive allylic substitution or dehydrogenation is, however, found in some cases with activated alkenes, for example, -ionone that reacts to (1) (Fig. 5) as a major product [23], menthone enolacetate that yields 90% (2) [24], and 3,7-dimethyl-6-octen-l-ol... 

Mechanisms There is a derth of knowledge about the mechanisms operative in selective oxidation reactions. The only exceptions are the reactions of ethylene to ethylene oxide on supported silver catalysts and of propylene to acrolein on bismuth molybdate type catalysts. For the latter, it is well established through isotopic labeling experiments that a symmetric allyl radical is an intermediate in the reaction and that its formation is rate-determining. Many studies simply extrapolate the results substantiated for this case to other reactions. New ideas on mechanisms are presented by Oyama, et oL, Parmaliana, et aL, and Laszlo. 

For many reactions the type of intermediate that is involved may be deduced from a study of a family of reactants. For example, by noting that in allylic oxidation the order of reactivity is isobutene > trans-2-butene > cis-2-butene > 1-butene one may deduce that an allyl radical or cation is an intermediate. For other oxidations, if the reaction rate order is primary > secondary > tertiary, then an anionic intermediate is implicated. However, care must be taken that the formation of the intermediate is involved in the ratedetermining step and that there are no adsorption equilibrium effects. To rule out the latter, the reaction should be carried out at conditions of low coverage. 

The scheme of reactions proposed to explain the products obtained is shown, after small modifications, in Scheme 8. Primary radicals 12 formed at the anodes produce with added 30 or 36 (equation lOe) the substituted benzyl or allyl radicals 38, which can dimerize to 39 or can couple with the added olefin to form radicals 40 or 41. For allyl radical (38) a 1,1 - or l,3 -coupling is possible yielding 41 and 40, respectively. Further couplings of 40 and 41 with the primary radical 12 produce 39 and head-to-tail dimer 42, respectively. It was evident from the products obtained that the coupling of 38 in the 1-position occurs 5 to 11 times faster than in the 3-position. However, for readily polymerizable olefins, rather polymerization occurs, in particular at graphite electrodes. At Pt electrodes both dimers 39 and 42 are formed, but for Cu electrodes exclusively dimers 39 were obtained with moderate yields. Thus, an indirect electrolysis including the oxidation of copper to Cu+ ions and their further reaction with 5 yielding intermediate RCu was considered, but not proved . ... 

At the reaction temperature the allyl radical apparently reacts with the oxide ions of the surface, forming acetate and formate ions as follows ... 

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