Hydrogens benzylic

The comparative ease with which a benzylic hydrogen is abstracted leads to high selectivity m free radical halogenations of alkylbenzenes Thus chlorination of toluene... 

As we saw when discussing allylic brommation m Section 10 4 N bromosuccm imide (NBS) is a convenient free radical brommatmg agent Benzylic brommations with NBS are normally performed m carbon tetrachloride as the solvent m the presence of peroxides which are added as initiators As the example illustrates free radical bromi nation is selective for substitution of benzylic hydrogens... 

Benzylic carbon (Section 11 10) A carbon directly attached to a benzene nng A hydrogen attached to a benzylic carbon is a benzylic hydrogen A carbocation in which the benzylic carbon is positively charged is a benzylic carbocation A free radical in which the benzylic carbon bears the unpaired electron is a benzylic radical Benzyne (Section 23 8) The compound... 

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. 

Under certain conditions surface catalytic deuterations can lead to the exchange of benzylic hydrogens. An example in the steroid field is the exchange of the benzylic hydrogens in estrone methyl ether (42) with deuterium in the presence of palladized charcoal." " According to mass spectrometric analysis, the product (43) contains three deuteriums (83 %), which have been assigned to the 6- and 9a-positions on the basis of NMR evidence." " ... 

Lead tetrafluoride, generated in situ from lead dioxide and hydrogen fluonde, can replace benzylic hydrogen by fluonne [3] Under sirmlar conditions phenol is simultaneously oxidized to 4,4-difluoro-2,5-cyclohexadienone [4 (equations 3 and 4)... 

Vanadium pentafluoride replaces benzylic hydrogen by fluonne but also adds fluonne to the aromatic system, giving fluonnated cyclohexadienes and cyclohexenes [5] (equation 5)... 

Benzene, with no alkyl side chain and no benzylic hydrogens, undergoes a different reaction under these conditions. Oxidation of the ring occurs to convert benzene to its epoxide. 

As mentioned in an earlier section (cf. Chapter 1, Section III), allylic positions are subject to attack by free radicals resulting in the formation of stable allyl radicals. A-Bromosuccinimide (NBS) in the presence of free-radical initiators liberates bromine radicals and initiates a chain reaction bromination sequence by the abstraction of allylic or benzylic hydrogens. Since NBS is also conveniently handled, and since it is unreactive toward a variety of other functional groups, it is usually the reagent of choice for allylic or benzylic brominations (7). 

Instability at the chain end could then arise via the benzylic hydrogen atoms due to the possible resonance stabilization of the resulting radical [Eq. (18)] ... 

The mechanism of side-chain oxidation is complex and involves reaction of C-J-l bonds at the position next to the aromatic ring to form intermediate ben-zylic radicals, tert- Butyl benzene has no benzylic hydrogens, however, and is therefore inert. 

Analogous side-chain oxidations occur in various biosynthetic pathways. The neurotransmitter norepinephrine, for instance, is biosynthesized from dopamine by a benzylic hydroxylation reaction. The process is catalyzed by the copper-containing enzyme dopamine /3-monooxygenase and occurs by a radical mechanism. A copper-oxygen species in the enzyme first abstracts the pro-R benzylic hydrogen to give a radical, and a hydroxyl is then transferred from copper to carbon. 

The mechanism of benzylic bromination is similar to that discussed in Section 10.4 for allylic bromination of alkenes. Abstraction of a benzylic hydrogen atom generates an intermediate benzylic radical, which reacts with Br2 to yield product and a Br- radical that cycles back into the reaction to carry on the chain. The Br2 necessary for reaction with the benzylic radical is produced by a concurrent reaction of HBr with NBS. 

Bamford, Jenkins and coworkers131157 concluded that many of the limitations of the Q-e scheme stemmed from its empirical nature and proposed a new scheme containing a radical reactivity term, based on experimentally measured values of the rate constant for abstraction of benzylic hydrogen from toluene (Ay i), a polar term (the Hammett o value) and two constants a and J which are specific for a given monomer or substrate (eq. 57) 146... 

When the iron sandwich complex bears an arene substituent with at least one benzylic hydrogen, the acidity of the latter is enhanced by the 7t-complexation to the 12e fragment FeCp+. The pKa of the conjugate acid of superoxide radical... 

Similarly, when both the Cp and arene ligands are permethylated, the reaction of 02 with the Fe1 complex leads to C-H activation of the more acidic benzyl bond [57]. When no benzylic hydrogen is present, superoxide reacts as a nucleophile and adds onto the benzene ligand of the FeCp(arene)+ cation to give a peroxocyclohexadienyl radical which couples with a Fe Cp(arene) radical. A symmetrical bridging peroxo complex [(Fe"Cp)2(r 5-C6H60)2] is obtained. The C-H activation reactions of the 19e Fe1 radicals BH can be summarized as follows... 

Margerum et al (Ref 9) photolyzed solns of aromatic nitrocompds in 95% ale using an unfiltered 400 watt mercury lamp. No compd was found to be phototropic which did not have a nitrogroup ortho to a benzyl hydrogen. They hypothesized that an intramolecular process involving an H-atom transfer was operative ... 

This conversion has been used as a key step in the preparation of optically active aziridines from optically active 1,2-diols (prepared by 15-46). ° Even hydrogen can be the leaving group. Benzylic hydrogens have been replaced by N3 by treatment with HN3 in CHCI3 in the presence of DDQ (p. 1511). °°... 

The results of chain transfer studies with different polymer radicals are compared in Table XIV. Chain transfer constants with hydrocarbon solvents are consistently a little greater for methyl methacrylate radicals than for styrene radicals. The methyl methacrylate chain radical is far less effective in the removal of chlorine from chlorinated solvents, however. Vinyl acetate chains are much more susceptible to chain transfer than are either of the other two polymer radicals. As will appear later, the propagation constants kp for styrene, methyl methacrylate, and vinyl acetate are in the approximate ratio 1 2 20. It follows from the transfer constants with toluene, that the rate constants ktr,s for the removal of benzylic hydrogen by the respective chain radicals are in the ratio 1 3.5 6000. Chain transfer studies offer a convenient means for comparing radical reactivities, provided the absolute propagation constants also are known. 

In an extension to the xanthenyl theme, the benzyl hydrogen was replaced with a substituted / -methoxyphenyl ring to give linker 35 (Scheme 10) [41]. Peptide amides were cleaved rapidly and in high purity with TFA-DCM (1 9) for 15 min or as a protected fragment with TFA-DCM (1 99) for 3-10 min. 

Benzopinacol contains two acidic hydrogens which could account fpr the greater yield of TPA. When benzopinacoRL was reacted with U, >73% of the deuterium was incorporated into the TPA. This clearly shows that the benzylic hydrogens of TPA may originate from a uranium hydride. 

The presence of heteroatoms in the N-alkyl chain can significantly affect the cyclization process. Benzylic hydrogen abstraction is preferred, for... 

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