Bonds hydride donor

Both Si-H and C—H compounds can function as hydride donors under certain circumstances. The silicon-hydrogen bond is capable of transferring a hydride to carbo-cations. Alcohols that can be ionized in trifluoroacetic acid are reduced to hydrocarbons in the presence of a silane. 

There are also reactions in which hydride is transferred from carbon. The carbon-hydrogen bond has little intrinsic tendency to act as a hydride donor, so especially favorable circumstances are required to promote this reactivity. Frequently these reactions proceed through a cyclic TS in which a new C—H bond is formed simultaneously with the C-H cleavage. Hydride transfer is facilitated by high electron density at the carbon atom. Aluminum alkoxides catalyze transfer of hydride from an alcohol to a ketone. This is generally an equilibrium process and the reaction can be driven to completion if the ketone is removed from the system, by, e.g., distillation, in a process known as the Meerwein-Pondorff-Verley reduction,189 The reverse reaction in which the ketone is used in excess is called the Oppenauer oxidation. 

Ionic hydrogenations of C=C and C=0 bonds were reported prior to the development of ionic hydrogenations mediated or catalyzed by transition metals. Tri-fluoroacetic acid (CF3C02H) as the proton donor and triethylsilane (HSiEt3) as the hydride donor are most commonly used, though a variety of other acids and several other hydride donors have also been shown to be effective. A review [1] by Kursanov et al. of the applications of ionic hydrogenations in organic synthe-... 

Molybdenum and tungsten carbonyl hydride complexes were shown (Eqs. (16), (17), (22), (23), (24) see Schemes 7.5 and 7.7) to function as hydride donors in the presence of acids. Tungsten dihydrides are capable of carrying out stoichiometric ionic hydrogenation of aldehydes and ketones (Eq. (28)). These stoichiometric reactions provided evidence that the proton and hydride transfer steps necessary for a catalytic cycle were viable, but closing of the cycle requires that the metal hydride bonds be regenerated from reaction with H2. 

In transfer hydrogenation with 2-propanol, the chloride ion in a Wilkinson-type catalyst (18) is rapidly replaced by an alkoxide (Scheme 20.9). / -Elimination then yields the reactive 16-electron metal monohydride species (20). The ketone substrate (10) substitutes one of the ligands and coordinates to the catalytic center to give complex 21 upon which an insertion into the metal hydride bond takes place. The formed metal alkoxide (22) can undergo a ligand exchange with the hydride donor present in the reaction mixture, liberating the product (15). 

A common motif in organometallic chemistry is the agostic interaction, which can act to stabilize low-coordination low-e-count complexes. The requirement is an alkyl group with a / - or a y-C—H bond attached to the metal within reach of (i.e., cis to) an empty coordination site. An attractive interaction occurs with the C—H bond acting as a 2e donor into the low-lying metal valence orbital that occupies that site. In the case of a / -C—H bond, hydride transfer may occur with little activation, resulting in an M—H sigma bond and complex with an alkene as discussed above. 

The reaction path depicted in Scheme 5.14 involves Wagner-Meerwein shifts of the methyl group prior to cyclization followed by hydride shift to a number of cationic intermediates. The second scheme (Scheme 5.15) depicts ring closure before methyl migration. The first step involves protolysis of the C—H bond next to the methyl-bearing carbon. The corresponding ion can then rearrange by a 1,2-methyl shift and yield 1,16-dimethyldodecahedrane 28 by hydride abstraction from a hydride donor. 

A requirement for an a/m-orientation of the hydridic p-C—H and C—metal bonds as in [10] is indicated by the reaction of threo-3-deuterio-2-(trimethylstannyl)butane with triphenylcarbenium tetrafluoroborate in methylene chloride at 24° which yields a mixture of 3-deuterio-l -butene, /ra v-2-deuterio-2-butene, and undeuteriated c/.v-2-butene as the major product (Hannon and Traylor, 1981). Comparison of the product distributions for the protio- and deuterio-stannanes yields primary and secondary isotope effects of 3.7 and 1.1 respectively. These reactions appear to avoid the complications of adduct formation between the triarylcarbenium salt and the hydride donor, but the preferential formation of the cw-2-butenes is not fully explained. The requirement for the anti-orientation is also shown by the relatively low hydride-donating properties of tris[(triphenylstannyl)methyl-methane (Ducharme et ai, 1984a) which adopts a C3-conformation with the P-C—H gauche to all three C—Sn bonds. In contrast, 1,3,5-triphenyl-2,4,6-trithia-1,3,5-tristannyladamantane, in which anti-orientations with respect to the bridgehead C—H bond are locked, shows high reactivity (Ducharme et al., 1984b). 

The hydride donor with a covalent M—H bond that is very frequently used for reducing carbonyl groups is iBu2AlH (DIBAL stands for diisobutylaluminum hydride). It can be used in ether, THF, toluene, saturated hydrocarbons, or CH2C12. 

In the addition of hydride donors to aldehydes (other than formaldehyde) the tetrahedral intermediate is a primary alkoxide. In the addition to ketones it is a secondary alkoxide. When a primary alkoxide is formed, the steric hindrance is smaller. Also, when the C=0 double bond of an aldehyde is broken due to the formation of the CH(0 M ) group of an alkoxide, less stabilization of the C=0 double bond by the flanking alkyl group is lost than when the analogous transformation occurs in a ketone (cf. Table 9.1). For these two reasons aldehydes react faster with hydride donors than ketones. With a moderately reactive hydride donor such as NaBH4 at low temperature one can even chemoselectively reduce an aldehyde in the presence of a ketone (Figure 10.6, left). 

Of two ketonic C=0 double bonds, the sterically less hindered one reacts preferentially with a hydride donor the bulkier the hydride donor, the higher the selectivity. This makes L-Selectride the reagent of choice for reactions of this type (Figure 10.7, left). 

When the plane of the double bond of a carbonyl compound is flanked by diastereotopic halfspaces, a stereogenic addition of a hydride can take place diastereoselectively (cf. Section 3.4.1). In Section 10.3.1, we will investigate which diastereomer is preferentially produced in such additions to the C=0 double bond of cyclic ketones. In Sections 10.3.2 and 10.3.3, we will discuss which diastereomer is preferentially formed in stereogenic additions of hydride donors and acyclic chiral ketones or acyclic chiral aldehydes. 

Fig. 10.10. Addition of hydride donors to the less concave (hindered) side of the C=0 double bond of norbor-nanone (A) and camphor (B). Since the steric differences in the diasterotopic faces of nor-bornanone are less pronounced than in camphor, the addition to norbornanone proceeds more rapidly and with high diastereoselectivity only if the bulky L-Selectride instead of NaBH4 serves as the hydride donor.

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