Benzylation, competitive

Ingold and his co-workers used the competitive method in their experiments, in which nitration was brought about in acetic anhydride. Typically, the reaction solutions in these experiments contained o-8-I 4 mol of nitric acid, and the reaction time, depending on the reactivities of the compounds and the temperature, was 0-5-10 h. Results were obtained for the reactivities of toluene, > ethyl benzoate, the halogenobenzenes, ethyl phenyl acetate and benzyl chloride. Some of these and some later results are summarized in table 5.2. Results for the halogenobenzenes and nitrobiphenyls are discussed later ( 9.1.4, lo.i), and those for a series of benzylic compounds in 5,3.4. 

The alternative synthetic route using the sodium salt of benzyl alcohol and an isopropyl halide would be much less effective because of increased competition from elimination as the alkyl halide becomes more sterically hindered... 

These reactions occur on the benzylic hydrogens because these hydrogens are much more reactive. Competition experiments show, for example, that at 40°C a benzylic hydrogen of toluene is 3.3 times as reactive toward bromine atoms as the tertiary hydrogen of an alkane and nearly 100 million times as reactive as a hydrogen of methane. 

Irradiation of 1,2,3-triphenylaziridine (98) in various alcohols has been reported to give benzaldehyde acetals and N-benzylaniline (68T2193). Competitive fragmentation to give N-(benzylidene)aniline and phenylcarbene, which is trapped as the alkyl benzyl ether, also appears to occur. 

A fundamental problem in the alkylation of enamines, which is inherent in the bidentate system, is the competition between the desired carbon alkylation and attack at the nitrogen. With unactivated alkyl halides (3,267), this becomes especially serious with the enamines derived fromcycloheptan-one, cyclooctanone, cyclononanone, and enamines derived from aldehydes. Increasing amounts of carbon alkylation are found with the more reactive allyl and benzyl halides (268-273). However, with allyl halides one also observes increasing amounts of dialkylation of enamines. 

Other benzyl radicals, including the parent benzyl radical, give reversible formation of quinonemethide derivatives (typically a mixture of a,p- and cqocoupling products) in competition with a,a-coupling (see also Section... 

Since there is inherent in reactions which give low selectivities, the possibility that non-competitive conditions are responsible, Olah and Overchuck359 have measured directly the rates of benzylation, isopropylation, and fer/.-butylation of benzene and toluene with aluminium and stannic chlorides in nitromethane at 25 °C. Apparent second-order rate coefficients were obtained (assuming that the concentration of catalyst remains constant), but it must be admitted that the kinetic plots showed considerable departure from second-order behaviour. The observed rate coefficients and kreh values determined by the competition method are given in Table 88, which seems to clearly indicate that the competitive ex-... 

Alcohols can be selectively bound to the same host type if they are combined with an amine and vice versa, considering that a cation and an anion will be formed through a proton transfer. The so-formed alkoxide anion will bind to the boron atom, while the ammonium ion will be complexed by the crown ether (147, Fig. 39). Competition experiments involving benzyl-amine have shown enhanced selectivity for the complexation of alcohols with... 

The other bromine atom comes from another bromine-containing molecule or ion. This is clearly not a problem in reactions with benzylic species since the benzene ring is not prone to such addition reactions. If the concentration is sufficiently low, there is a low probability that the proper species will be in the vicinity once the intermediate forms. The intermediate in either case reverts to the initial species and the allylic substitution competes successfully. If this is true, it should be possible to brominate an alkene in the allylic position without competition from addition, even in the absence of NBS or a similar compound, if a very low concentration of bromine is used and if the HBr is removed as it is formed so that it is not available to complete the addition step. This has indeed been demonstrated. ... 

The objective in selecting the reaction conditions for a preparative nucleophilic substitution is to enhance the mutual reactivity of the leaving group and nucleophile so that the desired substitution occurs at a convenient rate and with minimal competition from other possible reactions. The generalized order of leaving-group reactivity RSOj" I- > BF > CF pertains for most Sw2 processes. (See Section 4.2.3 of Part A for more complete data.) Mesylates, tosylates, iodides, and bromides are all widely used in synthesis. Chlorides usually react rather slowly, except in especially reactive systems, such as allyl and benzyl. 

The acetoxy group is introduced exclusively at the benzylic carbon. This is in accord with the intermediate being a weakly bridged species or a benzylic cation. The addition of bromide salts to the reaction mixture diminishes the amount of acetoxy compound formed by shifting the competition for the electrophile in favor of the bromide ion. Chlorination in nucleophilic solvents can also lead to solvent incorporation, as, for example, in the chlorination of 1-phenylpropene in methanol.37... 

Styrene oxide gives mixtures of C-a and C-(3 attack, as a result of competition between the activated benzylic site and the primary site. 

With the sodium derivative of benzyl alcohol, dibenzyl ether was obtained in 63% yield, accompanied by 24% of A-benzylimidazole. Formation of the latter compound results from the reaction of the benzyl sulfonate with imidazol sodium in competition with the second step of the ether synthesis (b). 

Devaky and Rajasree have reported the production of a polymer-bound ethylenediamine-borane reagent (63) (Fig. 41) for use as a reducing agent for the reduction of aldehydes.87 The polymeric reagent was derived from a Merrifield resin and a 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate-cross-linked polystyrene resin (HDODA-PS). The borane reagent was incorporated in the polymer support by complexation with sodium borohydride. When this reducing agent was used in the competitive reduction of a 1 1 molar mixture of benzaldehyde and acetophenone, benzaldehyde was found to be selectively reduced to benzyl alcohol. 

Ruasse et al, 1978) is totally regioselective and shows X-dependent chemoselectivity. This is partly in agreement with the kinetic data, which indicate no primary carbocation but rather a competition between the benzylic carbocation and the bromonium ion, depending on X. According to the data of Table 6, bridged intermediates would lead to more dibromide than open ions do. From these results and from those on gem-, cis- or frans-disubstituted alkenes, empirical rules have been inferred for chemoselectivity (i) more solvent-incorporated product is formed from open than from bridged ions (ii) methanol competes with bromide ions more efficiently than acetic acid. 

Normally, only a small stoichiometric excess (2-30 mol%) of silane is necessary to obtain good preparative yields of hydrocarbon products. However, because the capture of carbocation intermediates by silanes is a bimolecular occurrence, in cases where the intermediate may rearrange or undergo other unwanted side reactions such as cationic polymerization, it is sometimes necessary to use a large excess of silane in order to force the reduction to be competitive with alternative reaction pathways. An extreme case that illustrates this is the need for eight equivalents of triethylsilane in the reduction of benzyl alcohol to produce only a 40% yield of toluene the mass of the remainder of the starting alcohol is found to be consumed in the formation of oligomers by bimolecular Friedel-Crafts-type side reactions that compete with the capture of the carbocations by the silane.129... 

Competition Experiments of Ley Ley examined product distributions to obtain relative reactivity values (RRVs) for both rhamnose and mannose sugars with benzyl, 3,4-cyclic diacetals, and benzoyl groups. Using a limiting amount of acceptor (1 equiv), two donors were added in excess (2 equiv each), followed by the addition of activator (NIS/TfOH, 2 equiv) (Scheme 11.13). After quenching the reaction, the product distribution was analyzed by -NMR. 

A similar (but somewhat less obvious) dichotomy results in the simultaneous ring and sidechain substitution of durene. Thus in this charge-transfer nitration, the addition of N02 to the cation radical DUR+- (72) occurs in competition with its deprotonation (73), in which the pyridine has been shown to act as a base (Masnovi et al., 1989) (Scheme 15). [Note that deprotonation of DUR+- also leads to aromatic dimers via the subsequent (oxidative) substitution of the benzylic radical formed in (73) (Bewick et al., 1975 Lau and Kochi, 1984).]... 

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