Anhydrides and diaryl carbonates

Bond making is clearly dominant in spontaneous hydolyses of carboxylic anhydrides and diaryl carbonates and here k+/k > 1 (Table IV). These values of k+/k are not related in any obvious way to the reactivity or hydrophobicities of the substrates, although hydrophobicity seems to affect the overall micellar inhibition, probably because the more hydrophobic substrates penetrate the micelles and are shielded from water molecules. 

Hydrolyses of acyl halides are sometimes described in terms of the Sn1-Sn2 duality of the mechanism, or variants of it (56, 57), but these descriptions are unsatisfactory because they neglect the possibility of rehybridization of the carbonyl group in the course of reaction. Strongly electron withdrawing substituents favor nucleophilic addition by water to acyl centers, with assistance by a second water molecule acting as a general base (56-60), and good evidence for this mechanism exists in hydrolyses of carboxylic anhydrides and diaryl carbonates. This addition step should be followed by very rapid conversion of an anionic covalent intermediate into products, and the intermediate should have only a transient existence, at most, in polar, nucleophilic solvents. 

Spontaneous hydrolyses of carboxylic anhydrides, diaryl carbonates and aryl chloroformates are faster in cationic than in anionic micelles, regardless of the nature of the counteranion in the cetyltrimethylammonium micelle (Al-Lohedan et al., 1982b Bunton et al., 1984). This charge effect does not seem to be related to substrate hydrophobicity, although the extent of micellar inhibition (relative to reaction in water) is clearly dependent upon substrate hydrophobicity for anhydride hydrolyses. 

Examples of this behaviour are shown in Table 7 where k+ is related to reaction of substrate fully bound to a CTAX micelle and k to reaction in an anionic micelle of SDS. The ratio k+/k is consistently larger than unity for hydrolyses of open chain anhydrides, diaryl carbonates and aryl chloroformates. In addition hydrolysis of 4-nitrophenyl chloroformate is slightly faster in cationic micelles than in water. Spontaneous hydrolyses of N-acyl triazoles are also inhibited less by cationic micelles of CTABr than anionic micelles of SDS (Fadnavis and Engberts, 1982). 

It is reasonable to relate the values of k+fk at least qualitatively to the extents of bond making and breaking in the transition state. Bond making is all important in hydrolyses of carboxylic anhydrides, diaryl carbonates and methyl arenesulfonates. Bond breaking will be important in hydrolyses of alkyl halides and sulfonates, except for methyl derivatives, and especially so in water which can effectively solvate the leaving anion. 

Aqueous cationic micelles speed and anionic micelles inhibit bi-molecular reactions of anionic nucleophiles. Both cationic and anionic micelles speed reactions of nonionic nucleophiles. Second-order rate constants in the micelles can be calculated by estimating the concentration of each reactant in the micelles, which are treated as a distinct reaction medium, that is, as a pseudophase. These second-order rate constants are similar to those in water except for aromatic nucleophilic substitution by azide ion, which is much faster than predicted. Ionic micelles generally inhibit spontaneous hydrolyses. But a charge effect also occurs, and for hydrolyses of anhydrides, diaryl carbonates, chloroformates, and acyl and sulfonyl chlorides and SN hydrolyses, reactions are faster in cationic than in anionic micelles if bond making is dominant. This behavior is also observed in water addition to carbocations. If bond breaking is dominant, the reaction is faster in anionic micelles. Zwitterionic sulfobetaine and cationic micelles behave similarly. 

Asymmetric conjugate addition of dialkyl or diaryl zincs for the formation of all carbon quaternary chiral centres was demonstrated by the combination of the chiral 123 and Cu(OTf)2-C H (2.5 mol% each component). Yields of 94-98% and ee of up to 93% were observed in some cases. Interestingly, the reactions with dialkyl zincs proceed in the opposite enantioselective sense to the ones with diaryl zincs, which has been rationalised by coordination of the opposite enantiofaces of the prochiral enone in the alkyl- and aryl-cuprate intermediates, which precedes the C-C bond formation, and determines the configuration of the product. The copper enolate intermediates can also be trapped by TMS triflate or triflic anhydride giving directly the versatile chiral enolsilanes or enoltriflates that can be used in further transformations (Scheme 2.30) [110],... 

The simplest synthesis of pseudothiohydantoins (8) is by condensation of thiourea (6) with substituted a-chloroacetates (7)3 5 [Eq. (1)]. Synthons6 of 7, epoxyacids,7 a-chloroacetic anhydrides,8 and dialkyl acetylenedi-carboxylate,9 have been successfully substituted for 7. Symmetrical diaryl-thioureas (9), conveniently synthesized from the corresponding arylamine and carbon disulfide, react with a-haloacetic acid derivatives to give a single thiazolidinone 108,10,11 [Eq. (2)]. 

Meyer and Wagner reported that 4-quinazolones can also be formed by heating isatoic anhydride with amidines. They found that reaction of isatoic anhydride 38 with W,iV -diaryl formamides or W,A -diaryl acetamides 44 proceeded smoothly at moderate temperatures (120-140 °C) to give 45 along with the evolution of carbon dioxide. 

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