Arynes benzyne

Nucleophilic aromatic substitution can also occur by an elimination-addition mechanism This pathway is followed when the nucleophile is an exceptionally strong base such as amide ion m the form of sodium amide (NaNH2) or potassium amide (KNH2) Benzyne and related arynes are intermediates m nucleophilic aromatic substitutions that pro ceed by the elimination-addition mechanism... 

Aryne (Section 23 8) A species that contains a triple bond within an aromatic nng (see benzyne)... 

N-Arylation of azoles is achieved either by using arynes, activated halobenzenes (e.g. dinitro) or under Ullmann conditions. Thus benzyne reacts with imidazoles to give N-arylimidazoles (70AHC(12)103), and these compounds have also been prepared under modified Ullmann conditions. 

Although neither benzyne nor any other aryne has been isolated, it appears from the foregoing that we are justifled in considering these intermediates to be short-lived substances, the properties of which can be described by the series of resonance structures 17 and 21-23. 

The aporphinoid alkaloid PO-3 (129) was also prepared by intermolecular benzyne cycloaddition between 1-methylene isoquinolines 148 and arynes derived from 147 (Scheme 53). The alkaloid was finally isolated by means of preparative thin layer chromatography (91JOC2984). 

In the context of this section it is important that Ruchardt and Tan (1970 a) found that (solid) benzenediazonium fluoroborate gave benzyne adducts with potassium acetate in the presence of aryne trapping agents such as tetracyclone or anthracene. This is, however, not the case if water is present (Cadogan, 1971). As a consequence of these observations, Cadogan et al. (1971) simplified the formation of arynes from diazonium ions by converting aniline or its substitution products into arynes in a... 

There seem to have been only two investigations on dediazoniations in a protic solvent, where the observed products indicate that, in addition to DN + AN solvolysis, an aryne is likely to be present as a metastable intermediate. Broxton and Bunnett (1979) have found that 3-nitroanisole is formed in the dediazoniation of 2-nitroben-zenediazonium ions in methanol in the presence of methoxide ions. This has to be interpreted as a product arising from 3-nitro-l,2-benzyne as an intermediate. The occurrence of the aryne mechanism in poly (hydrogen fluoride)-pyridine mixtures, as discovered by Olah and Welch (1975), is mentioned in Section 8.2. 

Benzyne 72, 184ff., see also Aryne Bifunctional catalysts 361 Bilirubin, in azo coupling 323 f. 

Species such as 5 and 6 are called benzynes (sometimes dehydrobenzenes), or more generally, arynes, and the mechanism is known as the benzyne mechanism. Benzynes are very reactive. Neither benzyne nor any other aryne has yet been isolated under ordinary conditions, but benzyne has been isolated in an argon matrix at 8 where its IR spectrum could be observed. In addition, benzynes can be trapped for example, they undergo the Diels-Alder reaction (see 15-58). It should be noted that the extra pair of electrons does not affect the aromaticity. The... 

Benzyne Mechanism. Two factors affect the position of the incoming group, the first being the direction in which the aryne forms. When there are groups ortho or para to the leaving group, there is no choice ... 

The chemistry of dehydrobenzene, the parent aryne, has become well established during the past almost twenty years 4>. It is essentially the chemistry of a short lived (half-life ca. 10-4 sec.), and highly electrophilic intermediate. It reacts with a large number of nucleophiles, and undergoes cyclo-addition reactions with a wide variety of compounds. A number of observations have led us, and others, to concentrate our efforts on the tetrahalogenobenzynes. It seemed reasonable to predict that the presence of four electron withdrawing substituents on the aryne (1) would result in a significant increase in the electrophilicity compared with that of benzyne. 

The reaction of benzyne with furan was the first example of a Diels-Alder reaction of benzyne to be studied b. No authenticated examples of arynes are known which fail to give cyclo-adducts with furan i38>. The tetrahalogenobenzynes all form the expected adducts 103, X = F 6), Cl 57>i39)j gr 59) or i 59)). d0 other highly fluorinated arynes i40,i4i>. The isomeric adducts (104) and (105) have been detected by 19F n.m.r. spectroscopy when the dilithio-compound (12) was allowed to decompose in the presence of furan 28 103). 

The reaction of benzyne with cyclohexadiene has been known for some time 4>, but although a number of steroidal cis-dienes are readily available no reactions with arynes had been reported prior to our beginning such investigations 145>. This was somewhat surprising in view of the number of reports concerning the modification of steroids by means of reactions with carbenes 146 i49) and the known Diels-Alder reactions of steroidal dienes and trienes iso.isi). 

We hope that the results outlined in this review have demonstrated that the chemistry of the tetrahalogenobenzynes is sufficiently different from the chemistry of benzyne to be worthy of study. That four electron with drawing substituents are essential to the high reactivity of arynes in reactions with aromatic systems has been demonstrated by generating the isomeric trifluorobenzynes from the aryl-lithium compounds (135) and (136) in the presence of an excess of benzene 169>. Whereas tetra-fluorobenzyne reacts under similar conditions to give the 1,4-cycloadduct in greater than 50% yield the compounds (137) and (138) are produced in 16% and ca. 1.5% yields respectively. 

Benzyne itself has been isolated in solid argon at 8 K, and much evidence for the existence of arynes has come from trapping experiments and spectroscopy. Thus generation of benzyne (101) in the presence of furan (102) leads to the formation of the Diels-Alder (p. 197) adduct (103), which undergoes ready acid-catalysed... 

It has been shown that, in the presence of lithium diethylamide at —70 °C, bromoben-zoic acids form arynes which may react with arylacetonitriles to yield, predominantly, 2-cyanobenzoic acids. The reaction of alkyl and aryl isocyanides with benzyne may yield benzamide derivatives, showing their ability to act as charge-reversed equivalents to isocyanates. The generation and cyclization of a benzyne-tethered alkyllithium have been reported, and lead to a convenient synthetic route for 4-substituted indans. ... 

The reactive zwitterions arising from the nucleophilic attack of imines 479 on the benzyne generated in situ from 2-(trimethylsilyl)phenyl triflate 478 proved to be an appropriate molecular scaffold for the capture of CO2 with sufficient electrophilicity to yield 2-aryl-3,l-benzoxazin+-ones 480 (Equation 53). Both substituents of the C=N bond affected the course of the reaction considerably the best yields were achieved by using imines with electron-rich or neutral aryl groups on the carbon, and benzyl or nonbranched chain alkyl substituents on the nitrogen atom. With substituted derivatives of 478, the unsymmetrically substituted arynes led to regioisomeric products <2006JA9308>. 

Fluoro-o-benzyne (41) has also been isolated in cryogenic matrices by photolysis of the corresponding phthalic anhydride. The C=C stretching vibration of 41 has been observed at 1866 cm Compared to the parent, the triple bond length is only modestly increased according to DFT calculations (Fig. 16.2). Note, however, that the observed frequency shifts upon fluorine substitution in 4 are not reproduced at the B3LYP or BLYP level of theory (Fig. 16.2). Thus, the performance of different DFT functionals to account for the properties of o-arynes still remains a matter of debate,and casts some doubts on the results of certain DFT studies. 

Despite the fact that the history of hetarynes is older than that of the benzynes (cf. 2), physical data on these compounds are scarce. Numerous trapping experiments furnished evidence for the formation of brradicaloid intermediates in the field of five-membered heterocycles (didehydrofurans, -thiophenes, and -pyrroles)." Direct spectroscopic data on these species, however, do not exist, which may be attributable to the increased ring strain in the five-membered o-arynes, associated with a strong tendency to undergo ring-opening reactions. 

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