AZETIDIN-2-ONES AND RELATED AZETIDINE DERIVATIVES

3 AZETIDIN-2-ONES AND RELATED AZETIDINE DERIVATIVES 5.09.3.1 Structure 

Azetidin-2-one (SO) is a hydrolytically sensitive, colourless solid, m.p. 73-74 °C (75LA2195). Other simple azetidin-2-ones are usually low-melting solids or oils (74LA539) icf. Table 3). 

The N—CO distance of 1.38 A in (58) is rather greater than that of a normal amide (ca. 1.32 A) this has been attributed to ring strain and to inhibition of normal amide resonance by interaction with the N-aryl substituent. This inhibition of resonance is more pronounced in the N-tosyl-4-thioxoazetidin-2-one (59), which exhibits very short C=0 and C=S distances as well as the unusually long C—N bonds (80TL4247). NMR investigations 

The most informative feature of the IR spectra of azetidin-2-ones is generally the /3-lactam carbonyl absorption, the frequency of which is affected by substitution and by fusion of the ring (c/. Table 3). Thus, IR spectra of simple monocyclic /3-lactams generally have absorption maxima in the region 1730-1760 cm while the fused 2- and 3-cephem systems (60) and (61) show IR maxima in the regions 1772-1784 and 1782-1792 cm S respectively (b-72MI50900 p. 318). 

The higher frequencies of the /3-lactam carbonyl absorption in fused systems has been attributed to increased inhibition of amide resonance as the /3-lactam ring becomes less planar (b-72mI50900 p. 303). For the 3-cephems (61) there is also the possibility of enamine resonance which could further reduce the ability of the /3-lactam nitrogen to contribute to amide resonance. 

3 Azetidin-2-ones and Related Azetidine Derivatives 2.01.3.1 Introduction 

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IR spectra of systems related to /3-lactams show the expected trends in the frequency of the carbonyl absorption, where present. For example, the presence of an exocyclic double bond at C-4 in an azetidin-2-one raises the value of vc=o considerably. Thus the 4-thioxoazetidin-2-one (62 Z=S) and the derived 4-alkylidene systems (62 Z = CR R ) exhibit /3-lactam carbonyl absorptions at 1835 and 1800-1810 cm respectively (80JOC1477, 80JOC1481), while the 4-iminoazetidin-2-ones (63) have vc=o at 1800-1825 cm (81CC41). Additional spectral data for these and similar systems may be found in the references in Table 5. 

Some work published by Barrett and his group, related to that mentioned earlier, describes how 3-methylene-azetidin-2-ones (73) may be formed from l-lithio-oxy-l-lithio-aminoallene derivatives (72) by reaction with aldehydes followed by manipulation as shown in Scheme 6. 

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