Benzyne nucleophilic substitution

Since the nitrogen in pyridine is electron attracting it seemed reasonable to predict that the trihalopyridynes would also show the increased electrophilic character necessary to form adducts with aromatic hydrocarbons under similar conditions to those employed with the tetra-halogeno-benzynes. The availability of pentachloropyridine suggested to us and others that the reaction with w-butyl-lithium should lead to the formation of tetrachloro-4-pyridyl-lithium 82 84>. This has been achieved and adducts obtained, although this system is complicated by the ease with which pentachloropyridine undergoes nucleophilic substitution by tetrachloro-4-pyridyl lithium. Adducts of the type (45) have been isolated in modest yield both in the trichloro- and tribromo- 58) series. 

Dibenzopyrrocolines have been prepared by intramolecular addition of benzyne intermediates and by nucleophilic substitutions, as shown in Scheme 6 with the synthesis of ( )-cryptowoline (2) and the related dehydro base 39 by Bennington and Morin (7). ( )-6 -Bromotetrahydroisoquinoline 37, prepared by standard procedures, when heated with copper powder in dimethylformamide afforded dibenzopyrrocoline 38 in low yield, and 39 was formed when 37 was allowed to react with potassium amide in liquid ammonia. Compound 39 was converted to ( )-cryptowoline iodide (2) by hydrogenolysis of O-benzyl ether 39 and quartemization with methyl iodide. 

Problem 11.29 How is it that the nucleophilic substitution of nitrochlorobenzenes is by addition and elimination, whereas a benzyne mechanism is found with chlorobenzene M... 

Very strong bases such as NaNH2 convert unactivated aryl halides into benzyne intermediates which react rapidly with nucleophiles to form the products of an apparently simple nucleophilic substitution. It is now clear that hetarynes are frequent intermediates in reactions of not too highly activated heteroaromatic halides. 

Figure 8-5. Reactions of halobenzene derivatives with nucleophiles, a) Unactivated compounds are extremely inert and only react by mechanisms that involve the formation of benzynes. b) The presence of the electron-withdrawing nitro group, which can stabilise an anionic intermediate by the delocalisation of the charge onto the electronegative oxygen atoms, allows facile nucleophilic substitutions.

The intermediate with a triple bond is called benzyne. For substituted aromatic compounds, this type of intermediate is called an aryne. In benzyne, the ends of the triple bond are equivalent, and either can react with a nucleophile. 

We take up the aryl halides in a separate chapter because they differ so much from the alkyl halides in their preparation and properties. Aryl halides as a class are comparatively unreactive toward the nucleophilic substitution reactions so characteristic of the alkyl halides. The presence of certain other groups on the aromatic ring, however, greatly increases the reactivity of aryl halides in the absence of such groups, reaction can still be brought about by very basic reagents or high temperatures. We shall find that nucleophilic aromatic substitution can follow two very different paths the bimolecular displacement mechanism for activated aryl halides and the elimination-addition mechanismy which involves the remarkable intermediate called benzyne. 

We have seen that electron-withdrawing groups activate aryl halides toward nucleophilic substitution. In the absence of such activation, substitution can be made to take place, by use of very strong bases, for example. But when this is done, substitution does not take place by the mechanism we have just discussed (the so-called bimolecular mechanism), but by an entirely different mechanism the benzyne (or elimination-addition) mechanism. Let us f rst see what this mechanism is, and then examine some of the evidence for it. 

Such results indicate that, from a mechanistic point of view, it is not a matter of a simple aromatic nucleophilic substitution (in any case very difficult if not yi benzyne), but more probably of a radical substitution on an activated complex of the TCDD (SRNl mechanism) (1 ) this mechanism is favoured by the fact that the radical anion of TCDD is particularly stabilized (IJ). How this radical anion is generated from the initiator peroxide and how it reacts with the hydrogen donor (PEG or the solvent) is not at this moment clear however, interesting to note, degradation of TCDD by u.v. irradiation leads to the same intermediate compounds. 

In the presence of a strong base, an aryl halide undergoes a nucleophilic substitution reaction via a benzyne intermediate. After a hydrogen halide is eliminated, the nucleophile can attack either of the carbons of the distorted triple bond in benzyne. Direct substitution is substitution at the carbon that was attached to the leaving group cine substitution is substitution at the adjacent carbon. 

Benzyne is highly electrophilic, and is readily attacked by nucleophiles, in this case dimethylcuprate. The resulting anion is trapped by allyl bromide (as an electrophile) in a nucleophilic substitution reaction. 

---