Structure aluminum enolates

Transmetalation of 19 by treatment with two equivalents of diethylaluminum chloride generates the aluminum enolate species 23. The latter reacts with acetaldehyde to produce the stable aluminum aldolates 24 which do not undergo the Peterson elimination23. A protic quench then provides the a-silylated aldol adducts of tentative structures (2 R)-25 and (2 V)-25 with little diastereoselectivity. Other diastereomers are not observed. 

Lithium, magnesium, and aluminum enolates appear to afford comparable levels of kinetic aldol diastereoselection for a given enolate of defined structure. 

The reactions between triaUtylaluminum, R3AI, and carbonyl-containing species have been the subject of intensive study over many years . These reactions may result in adduct formation, alkylation, reduction or enolate formation, depending on the nature of the ketone and also the alkyl group attached to aluminum (equation 8). Rather surprisingly, there have been relatively few studies on mechanistic and structural aspects of enolization mediated by organoaluminum compounds. In part, this is due to the reported difficulty in the isolation and structural identification of aluminum enolates. ... 

An aluminum-lithiiun catalyst, (R)-ALB, prepared from (R)-BINOL, and lithium aluminium hydride promoted the addition of malonate to 23 giving (R)-44 in 99% ee. X-ray analysis of the ALB catalyst showed an aluminum ate complex structure with li coordination to the oxygen atom. The asymmetric tandem Michael-aldol reaction of 46 was conducted with this catalyst giving a single isomer 47 containing three asymmetric centers. The aluminum enolate under-... 

The few crystal structures obtained from aluminum enolates that are less important in synthesis than their boron counterparts reveal dimeric aggregates (Scheme 3.5). This maybe illustrated by the enolates 15 [43a], obtained fromiV,Af-dimethyl methyl glycinate through transmetallation of the lithium enolate, and 16 [43b] that was prepared by direct enolization of 2,4,6-trimethylacetophenone and trimethylaluminum. Both dimers feature an AI2O2 core unit and clearly demonstrate the O-bound character of aluminum enolates. 

To overcome the limitation of the high stability of the aluminum enolates, the oxygen atom has been transformed to silyl enol ethers, enol acetates, and allyl enol carbonates. Silyl enol ethers and enol acetates are precursors to lithium enolates. Enol acetates and allyl enol carbonates are precursors of cx-allylated adducts via the Tsuji-Trost rearrangement [75-77]. The silylation of aluminum enolates using TMSOTf is well established [78], although in some cases the isolation is difficult [33]. Silyl enol ethers allow further modification to be performed as they behave as lithium enolates (Scheme 15). A recent application can be found in the silylation of the conjugate addition adduct (/ )-((3-(but-3-en-l-yl)-3-methylcyclopent-l-en-l-yl)oxy)triethylsilane which allows aldol condensation to form an intermediate in the synthesis of Clavirolide C [79], a diterpene with a trans-bicyclo[9.3.0] tetradecane structure (Scheme 16) [80]. 

By using the p-methoxy-substituted enamide (192), Ninomiya et al. (54) succeeded in a simple synthesis of alloyohimbone (196) via the unconjugated lactam 194, which has an enol ether structure. Lithium aluminum hydride reduction of the lactam 194, followed by hydrolysis with hydrochloric acid and subsequent catalytic hydrogenation over platinum dioxide, yielded alloyohimbone (196) stereoselectively in an overall yield of 59% from harmalane (54) this was the most convenient synthesis of alloyohimbone (196) so far reported (Scheme 75). 

Aldol-Type Addition. Aldol-type addition of the magnesium enolate of (R)-(+)-7-butyl 2-(p-tolylsulfinyl)acetate, prepared with 7-butylmagnesium bromide, with aldehydes and ketones afforded, after desulfurization with Aluminum Amalgam, p-hydroxy esters in very high diastereoselectivity (eq Two chiral centers are created in the first step with very high diastereoselectivity (mainly one diastereomer is formed). A model M based on the structure of the sulfinyl ester enolate (determined by C NMR) and on electrophilic assistance of magnesium to the carbonyl approach, was proposed to explain and predict the absolute configuration of the two created chiral centers. ... 

The structure of catalyst 428 was proposed as a result of the several experiments shown in Sch. 60 and discussed below [89]. Firstly, it was observed that treatment of ALB catalyst 394 (Sch. 51) with methyllithium produced a solution from which the hexacoordinate aluminum species 434 (M = Li) could be crystallized in 43 % yield. The same compound could also be obtained from solutions prepared from 394 and nBuLi, and the sodium enolate of 425. Solid-state X-ray analysis of this compound revealed that it has the same structiu-e as the species 417 (Sch. 56) isolated by Feringa and coworkers during the preparation of ALB with excess BINOL (Sch. 55) [86]. The tris-BINOL(tris-lithium) alimunum complex 434 is not the active catalyst in the Michael addition of phosphonate 425 to cyclohexenone because the use of this material as catalyst gave the Michael adduct 426 in 28 % yield and 57 % ee which is dramatically lower than obtained by use of catalyst 428 (Sch. 59). In addition, the use of catalyst 434 (M = Li) gave the alkene product 429 in 13 % yield, a product that was not seen with catalyst 428. Additional evidence comes from the reaction between 425 and cyclopentenone with catalyst 434 (M = Li) which gives the adduct 427 in 78 % yield and 12 % ee. 

The simple lithium tetraorganoaluminates including LiAlEt4 are known to polymerize methyl methacrylate monomers [222]. This is, however, only possible at the very low temperature of -78°C. In contrast, preformation of the i-Bu2Al(BHT)-t-BuLi complex, then treatment of methyl methacrylate at 0°C afforded PMMA with a molecular weight of 28400 (Scheme 6.174) [223]. NMR analysis revealed that the alkyl group bonded to the end of the polymer chain is the t-Bu moiety derived from t-BuLi and not alkyl groups from aluminum. The contribution of two enolate intermediates, monomeric and dimeric aluminum species, was invoked to account for the structure of the initiation species. 

As described in the sections above, it is well established that reactions of Lewis acid-activated aldehydes and ketones with silyl enolates afford -hydroxy or /7-sil-oxy carbonyl compounds (Mukaiyama aldol reactions). Occasionally, however, ene-type adducts, that is /-siloxy homoallyl alcohols, are the main products. The first example of the carbonyl-ene reaction of silyl enolates was reported by Snider et al. in 1983 [176]. They found that the formaldehyde-MesAl complex reacted smoothly with ketone TMS enolates to give y-trimethylsiloxy homoallyl alcohols in good yield. Yamamoto et al. reported a similar reaction of formaldehyde complexed with methylaluminum bis(2,6-diphenylphenoxide) [177]. After these early reports, Kuwajima et al. have demonstrated that the aluminum Lewis acid-promoted system is valuable for the ene reactions of several aldehydes [178] and for-maldimine [179] with silyl enolates bearing a bulky silyl group. A stepwise mechanism including nucleophihc addition via an acyclic transition structure has been proposed for the Lewis acid-promoted ene reactions. 

Huorinated etiolates are generally difficult to form. Ishihara and coworkers used fluorovinyl phosphates, which can be prepared from a-fluoro ketones and sodium diethyl phosphite. Reaction of these fluorinated enol phosphates with a reagent prepared from lithium aluminum hydride (LiAIH4> and cop-per(II) bromide, zinc(II) chloride, tin(II) chloride or bromine afforded the enolate (Scheme 34).The reaction of the enol phosphate with the reagents mentioned above suggests that the metal cation of the enolate is an aluminum species, though its actual structure is not known at present. 

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