Aqueous Diels-Alder Reactions

Breslow studied the dimerisation of cyclopentadiene and the reaction between substituted maleimides and 9-(hydroxymethyl)anthracene in alcohol-water mixtures. He successfully correlated the rate constant with the solubility of the starting materials for each Diels-Alder reaction. From these relations he estimated the change in solvent accessible surface between initial state and activated complex " . Again, Breslow completely neglects hydrogen bonding interactions, but since he only studied alcohol-water mixtures, the enforced hydrophobic interactions will dominate the behaviour. Recently, also Diels-Alder reactions in dilute salt solutions in aqueous ethanol have been studied and minor rate increases have been observed Lubineau has demonstrated that addition of sugars can induce an extra acceleration of the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction . Also the effect of surfactants on Diels-Alder reactions has been studied. This topic will be extensively reviewed in Chapter 4. 

Apart from the thoroughly studied aqueous Diels-Alder reaction, a limited number of other transformations have been reported to benefit considerably from the use of water. These include the aldol condensation , the benzoin condensation , the Baylis-Hillman reaction (tertiary-amine catalysed coupling of aldehydes with acrylic acid derivatives) and pericyclic reactions like the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition and the Qaisen rearrangement (see below). These reactions have one thing in common a negative volume of activation. This observation has tempted many authors to propose hydrophobic effects as primary cause of ftie observed rate enhancements. 

Mechanistic investigations have focused on the two pericyclic reactions, probably as a consequence of the close mechanistic relation to the so successful aqueous Diels-Alder reaction. A kinetic inquest into the effect of water on several 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions has been performed by Steiner , van... 

What is the effect of micelles on the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction Can micellar catalysis be combined with Lewis-acid catalysis In Chapter 5 these aspects will discussed. 

First, the use of water limits the choice of Lewis-acid catalysts. The most active Lewis acids such as BFj, TiQ4 and AlClj react violently with water and cannot be used However, bivalent transition metal ions and trivalent lanthanide ions have proven to be active catalysts in aqueous solution for other organic reactions and are anticipated to be good candidates for the catalysis of aqueous Diels-Alder reactions. 

Water has physical hemical properties that are very different from those of other solvents [1] and its role in enhancing the reactivity and selectivity of some organic reactions is still a debated question. Recent experimental studies [3e, 9] and computer simulations [10] seem to indicate, at least with respect to the rate enhancement of aqueous Diels Alder reactions, that the main effects are due to the enforced hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bond interactions. 

The cycloaddition between furan and maleic anhydride was the first uncatalyzed aqueous Diels-Alder reaction reported in the literature and was studied by Diels and Alder themselves [11]. This cycloaddition was successfully revised by Woodward and Baer [12] and some years later by De Koning and coworkers [13]. The aqueous medium was also used in the cycloaddition of aromatic diazonium salts with methylsubstituted 1,3-butadienes [14]. 

Ijljl-trifluoroethanol (TFE), a solvent with a strong hydrogen-bond donor capacity. This supports the idea that hydrogen-bonding interactions also contribute noticeably to the acceleration of aqueous Diels-Alder reactions. 

Extensive work has been done by using buta-l,3-dienyl-glycosides of unprotected sugar to study aqueous Diels-Alder reactions and to prepare optically active oligosaccharides [20]. 

C-Disaccharide analogs of trehalose were recently [20c] prepared by using as a key step an aqueous Diels-Alder reaction between the sodium salt of glyoxylic acid and the water soluble homochiral glucopyranosil-l,3-pentadiene 19 (Equation 6.1). A mixture of four diastereoisomers in a 41 24 21 14 proportion was obtained after esterification with methanol and acetylation. The main diaster-eoisomer 20 was isolated and characterized as benzoyl-derivative. 

Aqueous Diels-Alder reaction has also been applied at the industrial level. 2,2,5-Trisubstituted tetrahydrofurans 21 are a class of active azole antifungals. Workers at Schering-Plough [21] developed a synthetic approach based on a Diels-Alder reaction between 2-arylfurans 22 and ethyl acetylenedicarboxylate (Scheme 6.9). Under thermal conditions the reaction gave a low yield of... 

Catalyzed organic reactions in water, and the aqueous Diels Alder reactions in particular, are currently a topic of great interest [3f h]. 

Simple imines are poor dienophiles and must be activated by protonation or by attaching an electron-withdrawing group to the nitrogen atom. Scheme 6.10 illustrates the Diels-Alder reactions of benzyliminium ion 25, generated in situ from an aqueous solution of benzylamine hydrochloride and commercial aqueous formaldehyde, with methylsubstituted 1,3-butadienes [22]. This aqueous Diels-Alder reaction combines three components (an aldehyde, an amine... 

Indium trichloride [30] and methylrhenium trioxide [31] catalyze the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction of acrolein and acrylates with cyclic and open-chain dienes. Some examples of the cycloaddition of methyl vinyl ketone with 1,3-cyclohexadiene are reported in Scheme 6.18. MeReOs does not give satisfactory yields for acroleins and methyl vinyl ketones with substituents at the jS-position and favors the self-Diels-Alder reaction of diene. 

An analogy can be drawn between pericyclic reactions in water and under high pressure. Water s internal pressure on hydrophobic substrates acts on the volume of activation of a reaction in the same way as an externally applied pressure does. Thus, the internal pressure of water influences the rates of pericyclic reactions in water in the same direction as external pressures. The use of salting-out salts will further increase the rate of pericyclic reactions. Recently, Kumar quantified the relationship between internal pressure and the rate of the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction. A linear relationship between the two was observed.5... 

The effect of water on Diels-Alder reactions has been studied extensively by various theoretical and experimental methods. It was mentioned previously that Breslow studied the influence of the hydrophobic effect on the aqueous Diels-Alder reactions in detail8,9 while the volumes of activation for catalyzed Diels-Alder reactions were examined by Isaacs et al.69... 

An interesting mechanistic issue was raised by Firestone on the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction between 2-methylfuran and maleic acid in water, which is found to be 99.9% stereospecific.80 By adding heavy atom (defined as any below the first complete row of the periodic table) salts to the aqueous media, it was found that addition of heavy but not light atom salts reduced the degree of stereospecificity significantly in the retrodiene reaction. The results suggest that a large portion of the Diels-Alder reaction occurs via diradical intermediates (Scheme 12.2). 

Much effort has been directed at developing aqueous Diels-Alder reactions toward the syntheses of a variety of complex natural products. Grieco employed micellar catalysis and pure water as the solvent for the Diels-Alder reaction of dienecarboxylate with a variety of dienophiles. For example, when the Diels-Alder reaction in Scheme 12.3 was carried out in water, a higher reaction rate and reversal of the selectivity were observed, compared with the same reaction in a hydrocarbon solvent (Scheme 12.3).81 Similarly, the reaction of 2,6-dimethylbenzoquinone with sodium ( )-3,5-hexadienoate (generated in situ by the addition of 0.95 equiv sodium bicarbonate to a suspension of the precursor acid in water) proceeded for 1 hour to give a 77% yield of the adduct... 

Sensitive dienol ether functionality in the diene carboxylate was shown to be compatible with the conditions of the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction (Eq. 12.26).84 The dienes in the Diels-Alder reactions can also bear other water-solubilizing groups such as the sodium salt of phosphoric acid and dienyl ammonium chloride (Eq. 12.27).85 The hydrophilic acid functionality can also be located at the dienophile.86... 

Similar reactions were applied to the syntheses of rf/-ep/-pyroangolen-solide, i/-pyroangoensolide (Eq. 12.29)88 and the formal synthesis of the Inhoffen-Lythgoe diol (Eq. 12.30).89 The key step in the formal synthesis of the Inhoffen-Lythgoe diol is the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction between the sodium salt of the diene and methacrolein to form the cycloadduct, which then undergoes subsequent reactions to form the known hydrin-dan. Sodium (E)-4, 6, 7-octatrienoate reacted smoothly with a variety of dienophiles to give conjugated diene products.90... 

De Clercq has shown that aqueous Diels-Alder reactions can be used as key steps in the syntheses of ( )-ll-keto-testosterone92 (Eq. 12.32) and ( )-gibberellin A5.93... 

The aqueous Diels-Alder reaction has also been used for bioconjugate studies. A Diels-Alder reaction of diene oligonucleotides with maleimide dieneophiles was used to prepare oligonucleotide conjugates in aqueous media under mild conditions (Eq. 12.39).102 A Diels-Alder-type cycloaddition of an electronically matched pair of saccharide-linked conjugated dienes and a dienophile-equipped protein was the... 

One-pot synthesis of (E)-2-aryI-1 -cyano-1 -nitroethenes104 and an approach to the synthesis of nitrotetrahydrobenzo[c]chromenones and dihydrodibenzo[b,d]furans were developed based on aqueous Diels-Alder reactions.105 Once again, it was found that the reaction occurred faster in water under heterogeneous conditions relative to those performed in toluene and methylene chloride (Eq. 12.41). 

Diels-Alder reactions. Investigation of use of the sodium salt of 1 in aqueous Diels-Alder reactions was prompted by reports rom two laboratories that water can function as a catalyst in this reaction. In fact, re.iction of the sodium salt in water with representative dienophiles proceeds at lower tempi ratures than those required in reactions of the corresponding methyl ester in benzene. Moioover, the sensitive dienol ether system in 1 is stable to long reaction times (72 hours) an 1 temperatures of 80°. 

Under the conditions of the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction, the initially formed cis-cycloadduct equilibrates to the more stable trans-ius A ring system. 

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