Benzene oxide-oxepine isomerization

For the benzene sulfide-thiepine system, the rate of valence isomerization is predicted to be much slower than that in the benzene oxide-oxepine system, as the enthalpy of activation for 10 —> 1 is 20.5 kcal mol 1 (7.03 kcal mol for benzene oxide-oxepine). 

In the case of the oxepin/benzene oxide valenee isomerization (40a) (40b), it has been found by UV/Vis measurements that, with zw-oetane as the solvent, only about 30 cmol/mol benzene oxide is present, whereas in water/methanol (85 15, cL/L)... 

The most general synthetic route to benzene oxides-oxepins is that initially developed by Vogel for 1. 1,4-cyclohexadienes (readily available from [2+4] cycloaddition of alkynes and butadienes, lithium-ammonia reduction of arenes, or dehydration of cyclohexenols) were converted to dibromoepoxides, the immediate precursors of benzene oxides. Modifications of this route have been used to prepare Ic and Id. Treatment of the monosubstituted arene oxide 43 (Figure 3) with (Et)4NF or thermal isomerization of 3-oxaquadricyclane provide additional synthetic routes to la. Similarly, the thermal (or photochemical) isomerization of the monoepoxide of Dewar benzene yielded la. ... 

Dewar pyridine, 2-azabicyclo[2.2.0]hexa-2,5-diene (218), thermally reverted to pyridine at room temperature with a half-life time of 2.5 minutes (Ea = 16 kcal/mol).255 Far more stable were 2-azabicyclo-[2.2.0]hex-5-en-3-ones (225).265-267 The kinetics of the thermal (2 + 2)-cycloreversion of 225 (R = Me) in the temperature range of 130° to 160° have been reported (A//J = 33.2 kcal mol-1 ASt = + 2.7 cal mol-1 deg-1).266 An interesting difference in rate was observed between 225 (R = H) and its methyl homolog 225 (R = Me). At 130° the former reverted ten times as rapidly to 2-pyridone as the latter did to 1-methyl-2-pyridone this difference has been related to the intermediacy of the lactim tautomer of 225 (R = H) in the former reaction. Dewar benzene oxide, 2,3-epoxybicyclo[2.2.0]hex-5-ene (266), isomerized to an equilibrium mixture of benzene oxide/oxepin at 115° with a half-life time of 18 minutes.270 The relatively high thermal stability of such strained bicyclic heterocycles has been attributed to the fact that the symmetry-allowed conrotatory process would give rise to an unfavored cis.trans heterocyclic diene.265... 

Oxepin and its derivatives have attracted attention for several reasons. Oxepin is closely related to cycloheptatriene and its aza analog azepine and it is a potential antiaromatic system with 871-elcctrons. Oxepin can undergo valence isomerization to benzene oxide, and the isomeric benzene oxide is the first step in the metabolic oxidation of aromatic compounds by the enzyme monooxygenase. 

Three decades ago the preparation of oxepin represented a considerable synthetic challenge. The theoretical impetus for these efforts was the consideration that oxepin can be regarded as an analog of cyclooctatetraene in the same sense that furan is an analog of benzene. The possibility of such an electronic relationship was supported by molecular orbital calculations suggesting that oxepin might possess a certain amount of aromatic character, despite the fact that it appears to violate the [4n + 2] requirement for aromaticity. By analogy with the closely related cycloheptatriene/norcaradiene system, it was also postulated that oxepin represents a valence tautomer of benzene oxide. Other isomers of oxepin are 7-oxanorbornadiene and 3-oxaquadricyclane.1 Both have been shown to isomerize to oxepin and benzene oxide, respectively (see Section 1.1.2.1.). 

Oxepin is the Hantzsch-Widman name for a seven-membered unsaturated heterocycle with one oxygen atom and the numbering follows the convention for monocyclic heterocycles. However, the isomeric benzene oxide has different numbering in agreement with the 7-oxabi-cyclo[4.1.0]hepta-2,4-diene structure, position 1 now corresponds to position 2 in the oxepin. 

Due to the instability of the seven-membered heterocyclic ring, oxepin is prone to isomerization reactions to bicyclic heterocycles such as benzene oxide. Irradiation of oxepin with UV light of/. > 310 nm gives the isomeric 2-oxabicyclo[3.2.0]heptadiene(l) in high yield.12 207 At shorter wave lengths, phenol is formed predominantly.207... 

The equilibrium between oxepin and benzene oxide created interest in performing Diels-Alder reactions trapping one or both isomeric structures.1 The reaction of maleic anhydride or maleic imide with oxepin and substituted derivatives gives products 1 derived from the addition of the dienophile to the benzene oxide structure.2-l4-126 14 9 156 158 228 231-259... 

The 1,3-dipolar reagent diazomethane reacts with oxepin and substituted derivatives to afford 1 1 or 2 1 adducts 13 or 14 across the C-C double bonds of the isomeric benzene oxides.238 239 In the 1 1 addition product 13, the two heterocycles adopt a cis orientation.238 The nitrogen can be extruded by irradiation of the dihydropyrazole. 

In connection with the chemistry of the reactive transient species, nitrene, the chemistry of azepines is well documented u. Also, the chemistry of oxepins has been widely developed due to the recent interest in the valence isomerization between benzene oxide and oxepin and in the metabolism of aromatic hydrocarbons 2). In sharp contrast to these two heteropins, the chemistry of thiepins still remains an unexplored field because of the pronounced thermal instability of the thiepin ring due to ready sulfur extrusion. Although several thiepin derivatives annelated with aromatic ring(s) have been synthesized, the parent thiepin has never been characterized even as a transient species3). 

Oxidation of the 2,2 -biphenyldiol (218, Scheme 56) by one molar equivalent of lead tetraacetate affords the oxepinobenzofuran 219. With two molar equivalents of lead tetraacetate the initial product is converted to the acetate 221, which on reductive acetylation, involving oxepin-benzene oxide isomerization, affords the dibenzofuran 222. Treatment of the oxepinobenzofuran 219 with ethanolic 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine yields the azo compound 220. On boiling with methanol in air, compound 219 is converted to the dibenzofuranone 223, again involving valence isomerization. Reductive acetylation then affords the dibenzofuran 224. ... 

A feature of 1//-azepine chemistry that intrigued early researchers (B-69MI51600, 71 AG(E)ll) was the possibility of azepine-benzeneimine (or azanorcaradiene) valence isomerism (67AG(E)402) akin to that in the oxepin-benzene oxide system. 

The spontaneous oxepin-benzene oxide isomerization proceeds in accordance with the Woodward-Hoffmann rules of orbital symmetry control and may thus be classified as an allowed thermal disrotatory electrocyclic reaction. A considerable amount of structural information about both oxepin and benzene oxide has been obtained from theoretical calculations using ab initio SCF and semiempirical (MINDO/3) MO calculations (80JA1255). Thus the oxepin ring was predicted to be either a flattened boat structure (MINDO/3) or a planar ring (SCF), indicative of a very low barrier to interconversion between boat conformations. Both methods of calculation indicated that the benzene oxide tautomer... 

NMR analysis does not provide an accurate estimate of the proportions of oxepin and benzene oxide present at ambient temperature due to a fast rate of isomerization (on the NMR timescale). The oxepin-benzene oxide ratio was found to be dependent upon solvent, temperature, substituents (electronic and steric effects) and the resonance energy of the molecule. 

Kinetic data on the oxepin-benzene oxide equilibration have been obtained from the temperature-dependent NMR studies. Low values were observed for the enthalpy of isomerization of oxepin (7.1 kJ mol-1) and 2-methyloxepin (1.7 kJ mol-1) to the corresponding benzene oxides (67AG(E)385). The relatively small increase in entropy associated with oxepin formation (5-11 J K 1 mol-1) is as anticipated for a boat conformation in a rapid state of ring inversion. Thermal racemization studies of chrysene 1,2- and 3,4-oxides have allowed accurate thermodynamic parameters for the oxepin-arene oxide equilibration process in the PAH series to be obtained (81CC838). The results obtained from racemization of the 1,2- (Ea 103.7 kJ mol-1, AS 3.7 JK-1 mol-1 and 3,4- (Ea 105.3 kJmoF1, AS 0.7 J K"1 mol ) arene oxides of chrysene are as anticipated for the intermediacy of the oxepins (31) and (32) respectively. 

While the isomerization of benzene oxides to oxepins occurs spontaneously at low temperature, the analogous mobile valence tautomerization of m-benzene dioxide 143 (Figure 10) to the 10-tt-heterocycle, 1,4-dioxocin, was only evident at temperatures > 50°The latter process is symmetry-allowed and is formally equivalent to a retro-Diels-Alder reaction. The mobile equilibrium at 60°C appeared... 

P(0)(0Me)2] gives the pyrans 65a-b and the diazepines 67a-b. Diazepines 67a-b are formed by spontaneous isomerization of the intermediate 2-(diazomethyl)-2//-pyrans 66a-b (87JOC3851). In contrast, the analogous reactions of 4-methyl-2,6-diphenylpyrylium tetrafluoroborate 63b with 64a-b give only 68a-b. The allylpalladium chloride-catalyzed decomposition of 65a-b and 68a-b in benzene solution gives 92-98% of oxepines 69a-b,d. Oxepines 69a-b,d react with triazolinedione 55 to form the Diels-Alder adducts 70a-b,d (83-89%), which are derived from the valence tautomeric benzene oxides. The corresponding reaction of 69c with 55 under otherwise identical conditions proceeds differently in that an isomer with structure 70 c (66%) is formed along with 70c (23%). 

Oxepins and their bicyclic valence tautomers, arene oxides are discussed in <95CHE(42)197>. Particularly noteworthy is the synthesis of a stable benzene oxide (63) which surprisingly shows little tendency to isomerize to the corresponding oxepin (64) in spite of the expectation that the fluorines would greatly destabilize the three-membered ring in the bicyclic structure (63) (Scheme 10) <90JA6715>. 

It should be mentioned that an end-product analysis was carried out by gas chromatography. The only product detected corresponded to the retention time of phenol. However, if benzene oxide and oxepin were present, they may have isomerized to phenol during the process of collection and passage through the chromatographic column, or the retention times may have been indistinguishable from that of phenol. (Authentic samples of oxepin and benzene oxide were not available to test these points). 

The reaction of oxepin (228 R = H) was complicated by the simultaneous photochemical reaction of benzene oxide, the valence isomer of oxepin.26 The results varied with solvent, temperature, and wavelength.269 The reaction proceeded with high selectivity to 2-oxa-bicyclo[3.2.0]hepta-3,6-diene (229 R = H) upon irradiation (A >310 nm) at room temperature. In most other cases the reaction was attended with the formation of phenol, probably from benzene oxide via Dewar benzene oxide, as this compound is known to isomerize photo-... 

Monocyclic oxepins exist in equilibrium with bicyclic isomeric benzene oxides (1,2-epoxybenzenes), e.g. 1 with 4 [1] ... 

The spontaneous oxepin-benzene oxide isomerization proceeds as a thermally allowed, disrotatory process according to the Woodward-Hoffmann rules. Because of eclipsing interactions, 2,7-substituents destabilize the benzene oxide structure and favour oxepin formation. If the 2,7-positions are bridged, the size of the bridge influences the oxepin-benzene oxide equilibrium. This is shown by studies of the 2,7-methylene-bridged systems 7 and 8 If n = 3, only the indane oxide is present if n = 4, tetrahydronaphthalene oxide predominates in the equilibrium mixture if n = 5, oxepin and benzene oxide are present in a ratio of 1 1 [4]. 

The possibility of valence isomerization also affects the reactions of the oxepins [5]. For instance, cycloadditions involve the benzene oxide, as shown by the Diels-Alder reaction with activated al-kynes, and give the epoxybicyclo[2.2.2]octatriene 9 or, in the presence of singlet oxygen, afford the peroxide 10. The latter isomerizes thermally yielding the ra .s-benzene trioxide 11 ... 

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