Friedel-Crafts reactions aromatic compounds

Friedel-Crafts alkylation is one of the most frequently used and widely studied reactions in organic chemistry. Since the initial discovery by Charles Friedel and James Mason Crafts in 1877, a large number of applications have emerged for the construction of substituted aromatic compounds. Friedel-Crafts alkylation processes involve the replacement of C—H bond of an aromatic ring by an electrophilic partner in the presence of a Lewis acid or Bronsted acid catalyst. Particularly, catalytic asymmetric Friedel-Crafts alkylation is a very attractive, direct, and atom-economic approach for the synthesis of optically active aromatic compounds. However, it took more than 100 years from the discovery of this reaction until the first catalytic asymmetric Friedel-Crafts (AFC) alkylation of naphthol and ethyl pyruvate was realized by Erker in 1990. Nowadays, owing to continued efforts in developing... 

Charles Friedel (1832-1899) Friedel was Professor of Chemistry at the Sorbonne. He did extensive work on ketones, lactic acid, and glycerol and he discovered isopropyl alcohol. He is best known for his studies of the use of aluminum chloride in the synthesis of aromatic products (Friedel-Crafts reaction, 1877). Friedel prepared a series of esters of silicic acid and demonstrated the analogy between the compounds of carbon and silicon, meanwhile confirming the atomic weight of silicon. He determined the... 

The most important method for the synthesis of aromatic ketones 3 is the Friedel-Crafts acylation. An aromatic substrate 1 is treated with an acyl chloride 2 in the presence of a Lewis-acid catalyst, to yield an acylated aromatic compound. Closely related reactions are methods for the formylation, as well as an alkylation procedure for aromatic compounds, which is also named after Friedel and Crafts. 

The synthesis of an alkylated aromatic compound 3 by reaction of an aromatic substrate 1 with an alkyl halide 2, catalyzed by a Lewis acid, is called the Friedel-Crafts alkylation This method is closely related to the Friedel-Crafts acylation. Instead of the alkyl halide, an alcohol or alkene can be used as reactant for the aromatic substrate under Friedel-Crafts conditions. The general principle is the intermediate formation of a carbenium ion species, which is capable of reacting as the electrophile in an electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction. 

Aromatic hydrocarbons substituted by alkyl groups other than methyl are notorious for their tendency to disproportionate in Friedel-Crafts reactions. This tendency has previously limited the application of the isomerization of para- or ortho-) m ky -benzenes to the corresponding meta compounds. At the lower temperature of the present modification, disproportionation can be minimized. 

The Friedel-Crafts reaction in the presence of anhydrous aluminum trichloride is one of the best methods for the manufacture of aromatic organophosphorus compounds see Eqs. (101) and (102) ... 

In 2000, Takata et al. reported the synthesis of diaryIsulfoximines by the Friedel-Craft reaction of sulfonimidoyl chloride with aromatic compounds in the presence of... 

Under Lewis-acid-catalyzed conditions, electron-rich arenes can be added to alkenes to generate Friedel-Crafts reaction products. This subject will be discussed in detail in Chapter 7, on aromatic compounds. However, it is interesting to note that direct arylation of styrene with benzene in aqueous CF3CO2H containing H2PtCl6 yielded 30-5% zram-PhCH CHR via the intermediate PhPt(H20)Cl4.157 Hydropheny-lation of olefins can be catalyzed by an Ir(III) complex.158... 

Its aromaticity cannot, of course, be tested by attempted electrophilic substitution, for attack by X would merely lead to direct combination with the anion. True aromatic character (e.g. a Friedel-Crafts reaction) is, however, demonstrable in the remarkable series of extremely stable, neutral compounds obtainable from (15), and called metallocenes, e.g. ferrocene (16), in which the metal is held by n bonds in a kind of molecular sandwich between the two cyclopentadienyl structures ... 

Antimony pentachloride is a reactive Lewis acid that can be used for Friedel-Crafts reactions and some other Lewis-acid-catalyzed reactions. The HF-SbF5 system is known as magic acid, and carbocations are stabilized in this medium.353 By using the HF-SbF5 system, alkylation of acetophenone (a relatively unreactive aromatic compound) has been achieved (Scheme 87). 

Friedel-Crafts reactions involving electrophilic substitution of aromatic compounds have been reported on solid base catalysts such as thallium oxide and MgO. The rates of benzylation of toluene by benzyl chloride over MgO nanocrystals were found to be of the order CP-MgO > CM-MgO > AP-MgO.56 An important observation in the study was that x-ray diffraction of the spent catalyst... 

This holds not only for aromatic and olefinic compounds but also for cycloparaffins which likewise take part in the Friedel-Crafts reaction. 

Acidic chloroaluminate ionic liquids are able to generate acylium ions and are therefore ideally suited to Friedel-Crafts reactions. Acylation of mono-substituted aromatic compounds in acidic chloroaluminate ionic liquids leads almost exclusively to substitution at the 4-position on the ring [9] (Scheme 10.8). 

The Friedel-Crafts reaction is one of the most important and versatile tools for the formation of carbon-carbon bonds in the synthesis of substituted aromatic and heteroaromatic compounds present in numerous natural products and drugs. Catalytic asymmetric variants using either metal complexes or organic molecules attracted considerable attention over the last few years. 

The low yields in Friedel-Crafts reactions are due to the polyalkylation of aromatic compounds, the production of racemic mixtures, and forming other undesirable products. 

Friedel-Crafts Reaction The Lewis acid-catalyzed (usually AICI3) alkylation or acylation of an aromatic compound. 

Another new use for chiral bis(oxazolines) is the Friedel-Crafts reaction of aromatic and heteroaromatic compounds. Jprgensen and co-workers found that the... 

The Friedel-Crafts alkylation of aromatic compounds by oxetanes in the presence of aluminum chloride is mechanistically similar to the solvolyses above, since the first step is electrophilic attack on the ring oxygen by aluminum chloride, followed by a nucleophilic attack on an a-carbon atom by the aromatic compound present. The reaction of 2-methyloxetane and 2-phenyloxetane with benzene, toluene and mesitylene gave 3-aryl-3 -methyl-1-propanols and 3-aryl-3-phenyl-l-propanols as the main products and in good yields (equation 27). Minor amounts of 3-chloro-l-butanol and 4-chloro-2-butanol are formed as by-products from 2-methyloxetane, and of 3-phenyl-l-propanol from 2-phenyloxetane (73ACS3944). 

This type of duality of action is presumably present in other situations, such as the Fries rearrangement (78), the Friedel-Crafts reaction with acid chlorides (65) or acid anhydrides (21), and the catalytic chlorination of nitrobenzene (17). In these reactions it appears that the uncoordinated Lewis acid is the effective catalyst. The same situation is illustrated by recent work on aromatic amination (32, 33) and halogenation (57, 58, 71) and seems to be general feature of Lewis acid-catalyzed electrophilic reactions of aromatic compounds containing suitable donor groups. 

---