Arene oxides with diene

While both hydrogenation and epoxidation reactions of (7) (and substituted forms) occur on the oxepin valence tautomer, cycloaddition reactions proceed more readily on the arene oxide form (where the diene is closer to planarity). Thus the dienophiles DM AD and maleic anhydride (MA) readily yielded [4 + 2] cycloadducts with (7) as shown in Scheme 22 (67AG(E)385). A similar type of singlet oxygen cycloaddition reaction gave an unstable endoperoxide (106) which upon heating yielded trans-benzene trioxide quantitatively (equation 14). (75JOC3743). 

The presence of substituents at the 2,7-positions of (7) results in an almost total preference for the oxepin form and this may explain why the arene oxide forms of oxepins (98) (78TL2999) and (108) (79JOC468) apparently did not participate in cycloaddition reactions. Oxepins (16) and (108) thus adopted the role of dienes in [4 + 2] cycloaddition reactions with azo compounds (equation 16). 

Arene oxide-oxepin systems have also been reported to undergo [2 + 4] or [4 + 6] pericyclic cycloaddition reactions with heterocyclic dienes like the tetrazine 279 and the triazine 280. 65 Thus 86 96 reacts with 279 and 280 to yield the dihydrooxepino [4,5-d] pyridazine 281 and the oxepino [4,5-c] pyridine 282, respectively, via a [2 + 4] cycloaddition as well as the phthalazine 283 and isoquinoline 284, respectively, probably via a [6 + 4] cycloaddition reaction. However, 157 gives only 285 and 286 arising from a [2 + 4] cycloaddition reaction. 

Decomplexation of ArCr CO)3. The chromium carbonyl complexes of arenes are useful for activation of the aryl group to nucleophilic attack (6, 28, 125-126 7, 71-72). Decomplexation has been effected with iodine or by photochemical oxidation with destruction of the expensive Cr(CO)3 unit. A more recent method involves reflux with pyridine to form Py3-Cr(CO)3 in yields of 70-100%. The pyridine complex in the presence of BF3 can be reused for preparation of ArCr(CO)3. Isomerization of 1,3-dienes. Ergosteryl acetate (1) is isomerized by chromium carbonyl to ergosteryl 83 acetate (2) in 81% yield. Under the same conditions ergosteryl 83 acetate (3) is isomerized to ergosteryl 81 acetate (4). 80th reactions involve isomerization of a cisoid diene to a transpid diene. In contrast iron carbonyl isomerizes steroidal transoid 3,5- and 4,6-dienes to 2,4-dienes. ... 

Diene cycloaddition reactions have frequently been used to characterize relatively unstable arene oxide-oxepins. The reactions of 1 with maleic anhydride or dimethyl... 

The earliest reduction reactions of arene oxides to be reported involved catalytic hydrogenation of 1 (H2-Pd) to yield oxepane and reaction with lithium aluminium hydride to give cyclohexa-l,3-dien-5-ol. An alternative type of reduction reaction... 

Electron-rich olefins with substituents Y = phenyl, vinyl, amino, or alkoxy can be coupled by anodic oxidation to tail-tail dimers being either deprotonated to dienes and/or substituted a to Y, depending on Y and the reaction conditions (Eq. 6). Alkyl substituted arenes can be dehydrodimer-ized to diphenyls or diphenylmethanes depending on the kind of substitution (Eq. 7). 

A molybdenum-mediated oxidative coupling of aniline 1 with cyclohexene 2a provides carbazole 3. Alternatively, the same overall transformation of aniline 1 to carbazole 3 is achieved by iron-mediated oxidative coupling with cyclo-hexa-1,3-diene 2b or by palladium-catalyzed oxidative coupling with arenes 2c. The use of appropriately substituted anilines and unsaturated six-membered hydrocarbons opens up the way to highly convergent organometallic syntheses of carbazole alkaloids. 

Cyclization of dienynes.1 This Ni(0) catalyst in combination with a triarylphos-phite, particularly tri-o-biphenyl phosphite, permits intramolecular cycloaddition at 25° of [4+2] dienynes, in which the diene and the alkyne are separated by 3- and 4-atom units. This reaction is a useful route to products containing a cyclohexadiene group, which are oxidized to an arene by DDQ. 

Microbial oxidation of arenes is a feasible process. An example is the conversion of benzene to cylohexa-3,5-diene-1,2-diol (14, R = H) by the bacterium Pseudomonas putida P. putida). The process is stereoselective and with substituted benzenes (14, R h) a single enantiomer is produced (Scheme 11.7). Such compounds are useful starting materials for natural product synthesis. 

Radical cations are probably involved in the photooxidation of olefins [1-7, 24, 50-54, 56, 61, 66] (Eqs. 2 and 5). Many oxidizable arenes and dienes are, similarly, oxidatively cleaved or rearranged by routes consistent with initial formation of a radical cation. As we saw above, the observed oxidative cleavage product probably derives from the combination of a surface-bound radical cation with superoxide or adsorbed oxygen. With alkanes or simply substituted alkenes, however, the capture of a photogenerated hole is often thermodynamically forbidden. Thus, instead of radical cations, radicals formed by hydrogen atom abstraction by an activated oxygen species dominate the observed chemistry. With alkanes, oxygenation at sites... 

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