Arene oxides synthesis

ARENE OXIDE SYNTHESIS PHENANTHRENE 9,10-OXIDE (Phenanthro[9,10-ft]oxirene, 10,9 A-dihydro)... 

Nitrogen heterocycles continue to be valuable reagents and provide new synthetic approaches such as NITRONES FOR INTRAMOLECULAR -1,3 - DIPOLAR CYCLOADDITIONS HEXAHYDRO-1,3,3,6-TETRAMETHYL-2,l-BENZISOX AZOLINE. Substituting on a pyrrolidine can be accomplished by using NUCLEOPHILIC a - sec - AM IN O ALKYL ATION 2-(DI-PHENYLHYDROXYMETHYL)PYRROLIDINE. Arene oxides have considerable importance for cancer studies, and the example ARENE OXIDE SYNTHESIS PHENANTHRENE 9,10-OXIDE has been included. An aromatic reaction illustrates RADICAL ANION ARYLATION DIETHYL PHENYLPHOSPHONATE. 

The simplest member of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) series, naphthalene, may in principle form four possible arene oxide-oxepin tautomeric pairs (A-D). In practice, the valence tautomers that have an intact aromatic-ring structure 11, 12, 100, 101 predominate. This discussion of arene oxide synthesis... 

The direct oxidation of PAHs as a synthetic route has been confined mainly to the more stable K-region arene oxides. However, the first isolation of an arene oxide resulting from direct chemical oxidation of a PAH (and to date the only example of a non-K-region arene-oxide synthesis by this route) was achieved in low yield by photolysis of pyridine A -oxide in the presence of naphthalene to form naphthalene 1,2-oxide 11. The relative susceptibility of non-K-region arene oxides to further epoxidation is one of the reasons for the lack of generality of this approach. 

Weyrauch, J.P., Wolfe, M., Prey, W. and Bats, J.W. (2005) Gold catalysis proof of arene oxides as intermediates in the phenol synthesis. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 44, 2798. 

A clever application of this reaction has recently been carried out to achieve a high yield synthesis of arene oxides and other dihydroaromatic, as well as aromatic, compounds. Fused-ring /3-lactones, such as 1-substituted 5-bromo-7-oxabicyclo[4.2.0]oct-2-en-8-ones (32) can be readily prepared by bromolactonization of 1,4-dihydrobenzoic acids (obtainable by Birch reduction of benzoic acids) (75JOC2843). After suitable transformation of substituents, mild heating of the lactone results in decarboxylation and formation of aromatic derivatives which would often be difficult to make otherwise. An example is the synthesis of the arene oxide (33) shown (78JA352, 78JA353). 

In the aromatic-ring-annelated oxepin series the resonance effect is clearly the major influence dominating other factors (e.g. temperature, solvent, etc.) which affect the oxepin-arene oxide equilibrium. It is however very difficult to exclude the presence of a minor (spectroscopically undetectable) contribution from either tautomer at equilibrium. This problem has been investigated by the synthesis of chiral arene oxides from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The presence of oxepin (26) in equilibrium with naphthalene 1,2-oxide has been excluded by the synthesis of the optically active arene oxide which showed no evidence of racemization in solution at ambient temperature via the achiral oxepin (26) <79JCS(Pl)2437>. 

A stereospecific synthesis of aziridine 266 has been reported by Ittah et al. from arene oxide 1 by treatment with sodium azide, followed by tri-phenylphosphine reaction. The reaction proceeds via a phosphonium hydroxide intermediate (267).157... 

Based on this sequence, Blum et a/.158 have reported a general synthesis of unsubstituted K-region arene imines from the corresponding arene oxides. K-Imines of benz[a] anthracene, 7-methylbenz[a]anthracene, dibenz [a,/i] anthracene, and benzo[a] pyrene have been prepared. Azido alcohol formation from these oxides is generally nonregiospecific and both possible regioisomers of the azido alcohols are formed in different proportions. 

W. Flitsch and G. Jones provide the first comprehensive review of pyrrolizine chemistry, an area of increasing interest. The chemistry of the arene oxides has been brought up-to-date by G. S. Shirwaiker and M. V. Bhatt. Following the overall treatment of the electrochemistry of heterocycles given by Lund in Volume 36 of this series, J. E. Toomey has now reviewed electrochemical synthesis and modification of pyridines, a subject of great industrial and academic interest. 

What is remarkable, however, is the stereochemical influence of a 13-hydroxyl group, p-hydroxycarbocations such as 31 are formed not only from arene oxide as precursors but from arene dihydrodiols. As shown for the parent benzene dihydrodiols in Scheme 23, arene dihydrodiols exist as cis-and /ra/rv-isomers. The m-isomers are obtained as products of the action on the aromatic molecule of dioxygenase enzymes and have been prepared on a large scale by fermentation.92 The trans-isomers are normally accessible by straightforward synthesis, for example, from the arene oxide. Both isomers undergo acid-catalyzed dehydration to the parent aromatic molecule, as is also shown in Scheme 23. It is clear that their reactions should involve a common carbocation intermediate,163 164 and in so far as there is little difference in the stabilities of the isomers,165 their difference in reactivities might have been expected to be small. 

At least two systems can be cited as catalysts of peroxide oxidation the first are the iron (III) porphyrins (44) and the second are the Gif reagents (45,46), based on iron salt catalysis in a pyridine/acetic acid solvent with peroxide reagents and other oxidants. The author s opinion is that more than systems for stress testing these are tools useful for the synthesis of impurities, especially epoxides. From another point of view, they are often considered as potential biomimetic systems, predicting drug metabolism. Metabolites are sometimes also degradation impurities, but this is not a general rule, because enzymes and free radicals have different reactivity an example is the metabolic synthesis of arene oxides that never can be obtained by radical oxidation. 

Use of transition metal catalysts opens up previously unavailable mechanistic pathways. With hydrogen peroxide and catalytic amounts of methyl trioxorhe-nium (MTO), 2-methylnaphthalene can be converted to 2-methylnaphtha-l,4-qui-none (vitamin K3 or menadione) in 58 % yield and 86 % selectivity at 81 % conversion (Eq. 10) [43, 44]. Metalloporphyrin-catalyzed oxidation of 2-methylnaphtha-lene with KHSOs can also be used to prepare vitamin K3 [45]. The MTO-catalyzed process can also be applied to the synthesis of quinones from phenols [46, 47]. In particular, several benzoquinones of cardanol derivatives were prepared in this manner [48], The oxidation is thought to proceed through the formation of arene oxide intermediates [47]. 

The following phenol synthesis from easily accessible furyl alkynyl starting material was the first gold-catalysed reaction to proceed via car-benes and arene oxides (Ts = p-toluene sulfonate Cat = AUCI3 in... 

Experimental and theoretical studies on gold- and platinum-catalyzed reactions " explained the mechanism of this phenol synthesis. Oxepines and arene oxides have been observed in the reaction catalyzed by Au(III). ... 

Boyd and co-workers interest in the properties of arene oxide metabolites has led them to undertake investigations into the synthesis and isomerization of such compounds (e.g., dibenz[ , ]anthracene 3,4-oxide 27, phenanthrene 3,4-oxide 28, triphenylene 1,2-oxide 29, and dibenz[ ,f]anthracene 1,2-oxide 30 (Figure 4)) <2001J(P1)1091>. 

Naphthalene 1,2-oxide. Yagi and Jerina have reported a new method for synthesis of arene oxides. The starting material for the preparation of naphthalene 1,2-oxide (5) is I-hydroxy-2-bromotetralin, (I), which is acetylated with irifluoroacctic anhydride in chloroform to give (2) in 84 % yield. This is converted into the dibromide (3) by treatment with NBS (note that tetralin 1,2-epoxidc is uiLstable to bromination with NBS). The... 

Figures. Established modifications of a substituent X prior to synthesis of 1-substituted benzene oxides. See Figure 3 for product arene oxides.

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