Borane dialkylboranes

Secondary boranes (dialkylboranes) react with alkenes in a 1 1 ratio. Disiamylborane, which is prepared in situ from borane-dimethyl sulfide with 2 mol of 2-methyl-2-butene, converts 1-octene into 1-octyldisiamyl-borane in ether at 0 °C in 2 h [611] (vide infra). 

Mono-, di-, and trialkylboranes may be obtained from olefins and the trifunctional borane molecule. Simple unhindered alkenes yield trialkylboranes and it is not possible to halt the reaction at the mono- or dialkylborane stage. With more hindered and trisubstituted alkenes the reaction can be controlled to stop at the dialkylborane stage. 

Mono- and dialkylboranes usually exist as bridged dimers, yy -dialkyldiboranes and yy -tetraalkyldiboranes. Only very hindered alkylboranes, eg, bis(2,3-dimethyl-2-butyl) borane (39), are monomeric. However, for convenience of presentation monomers are shown in the equations. 

Retardation of the reaction rate by the addition of dimethyl sulfide is in accord with this mechanism. Borane—amine complexes and the dibromoborane—dimethyl sulfide complex react similarly (43). Dimeric diaLkylboranes initially dissociate (at rate to the monomers subsequentiy reacting with an olefin at rate (44). For highly reactive olefins > k - (recombination) and the reaction is first-order in the dimer. For slowly reacting olefins k - > and the reaction shows 0.5 order in the dimer. 

Mono- and diaLkylboranes obtained by controlled hydroboration of hindered olefins and by other methods can serve as valuable hydroborating agents for more reactive olefins. Heterosubstituted boranes are also available and used for this purpose. These borane derivatives show differences in reactivity and selectivity. 

A number of less hindered monoalkylboranes is available by indirect methods, eg, by treatment of a thexylborane—amine complex with an olefin (69), the reduction of monohalogenoboranes or esters of boronic acids with metal hydrides (70—72), the redistribution of dialkylboranes with borane (64) or the displacement of an alkene from a dialkylborane by the addition of a tertiary amine (73). To avoid redistribution, monoalkylboranes are best used /V situ or freshly prepared. However, they can be stored as monoalkylborohydrides or complexes with tertiary amines. The free monoalkylboranes can be hberated from these derivatives when required (69,74—76). Methylborane, a remarkably unhindered monoalkylborane, exhibits extraordinary hydroboration characteristics. It hydroborates hindered and even unhindered olefins to give sequentially alkylmethyl- and dialkylmethylboranes (77—80). 

Primary dialkylboranes react readily with most alkenes at ambient temperatures and dihydroborate terminal acetylenes. However, these unhindered dialkylboranes exist in equiUbtium with mono- and ttialkylboranes and cannot be prepared in a state of high purity by the reaction of two equivalents of an alkene with borane (35—38). Nevertheless, such mixtures can be used for hydroboration if the products are acceptable for further transformations or can be separated (90). When pure primary dialkylboranes are required they are best prepared by the reduction of dialkylhalogenoboranes with metal hydrides (91—93). To avoid redistribution they must be used immediately or be stabilized as amine complexes or converted into dialkylborohydtides. 

Borabicyclo [3.3.1] nonane [280-64-8], 9-BBN (13) is the most versatile hydroborating agent among dialkylboranes. It is commercially available or can be conveniendy prepared by the hydroboration of 1,5-cyclooctadiene with borane, followed by thermal isomerization of the mixture of isomeric bicychc boranes initially formed (57,109). 

Among chiral dialkylboranes, diisopinocampheylborane (8) is the most important and best-studied asymmetric hydroborating agent. It is obtained in both enantiomeric forms from naturally occurring a-pinene. Several procedures for its synthesis have been developed (151—153). The most convenient one, providing product of essentially 100% ee, involves the hydroboration of a-pinene with borane—dimethyl sulfide in tetrahydrofuran (154). Other chiral dialkylboranes derived from terpenes, eg, 2- and 3-carene (155), limonene (156), and longifolene (157,158), can also be prepared by controlled hydroboration. A more tedious approach to chiral dialkylboranes is based on the resolution of racemates. /n j -2,5-Dimethylborolane, which shows excellent enantioselectivity in the hydroboration of all principal classes of prochiral alkenes except 1,1-disubstituted terminal double bonds, has been... 

Another example of great synthetic interest, involves the hydroboration reaction of alkenes [62], In general, the addition of borane to alkenes proceeds stepwise, the final product being the trialkylborane. However, hindered alkenes react slowly, especially when the dialkylborane precipitates from the medium. It was found that trialkyl bor-anes could be obtained rapidly under sonication, even with highly hindered substrates (Eq. 3.5). Applications of this useful modification were published, among which were the reduction-hydroxylation of vinyl groups by 9-BBN [63,64]. 

Chiral Dialkylboranes. Several allylic boranes have been developed as chiral auxiliary reagents (Fig. 5). The introduction of terpene-based reagents such as 12 and 64-68 has been pioneered by H.C. Brown, and the most popular class remains the bis(isopinocampheyl) derivatives (structures 12, 64-66). A wide variety of substituted analogs have been reported, including the popular crotylboranes but also a number of other reagents bearing heteroatom-... 

Hydroboration-oxidation of alkynes preparation of aldehydes and ketones Hydroboration-oxidation of terminal alkynes gives syn addition of water across the triple bond. The reaction is regioselective and follows anti-Markovnikov addition. Terminal alkynes are converted to aldehydes, and all other alkynes are converted to ketones. A sterically hindered dialkylborane must be used to prevent the addition of two borane molecules. A vinyl borane is produced with anU-Markovnikov orientation, which is oxidized by basic hydrogen peroxide to an enol. This enol tautomerizes readily to the more stable keto form. 

In another procedure, the addition of a dialkylborane to a 1-haloalkyne produces an a-halo vinylic borane (80).344 Treatment of this with NaOMe gives the rearrangement shown. 

Borane may react sequentially with 3 mol of alkene to form mono-, di-, and trialk-ylboranes. Both the alkene structure and reaction conditions affect product distribution. Trialkylboranes are usually formed from terminal olefins [Eq. (6.57)] and unhindered disubstituted alkenes such as cyclopentene irrespective of the reactant ratio.340 The reaction cannot be stopped at the mono- or dialkylborane stage. In contrast, hindered disubstituted olefins (e.g., cyclohexene) and trisubstituted alkenes are converted mainly to dialkylboranes [Eq. (6.58)]. Careful control of... 

If the alkene is a bulky molecule, borane may add only one or two alkene molecules to give either mono- or dialkylborane, RBH2 or R2BH, respectively, as the following reactions show ... 

With a bulky dialkylborane, such as di-(l, 2-dimethylpropyl)borane, further addition to the alkenylborane does not occur. 

The hydroboration of a trisubstituted olefin, exemplified by the reaction of 2-methyl-2-butene with diborane, is conveniently stopped at the dialkylborane stage to produce disiamyl-borane. As a result of its rather large steric requirements this... 

The usefulness of this synthesis has been limited by the limited availability of dialkylboranes. Recently these boranes have been obtained in situ by hydridation of dialkylhaloboranes (equation II).2... 

Unhindered alkenes react rapidly with borane to give initially monoalkylboranes, then dialkylboranes, and finally trialkylboranes. The reaction of borane with ethene is illustrated in Equation B1.4. 

Borane transforms a wide range of alkenes into trialkylboranes under mild conditions but the trifunctional nature of borane and its trialkylborane products imposes some limitations on its use. Many of the synthetically useful reactions of the trialkylboranes (see Chapters B.2 and B.3) use all three alkyl substituents, but some reactions only utilize either two or even one of the alkyl substituents. This sets a maximum yield (based on the alkene starting material) for these latter transformations of 66% and 33% respectively which is clearly undesirable especially if the alkene involved is the product of a multi-step synthetic sequence. To overcome this problem, and others such as the production of intractable polymers on addition of borane to dienes and alkynes, monoalkylborane and dialkylborane hydroborating reagents were introduced. Some commonly used reagents are depicted in Figure B 1.2 and two are described in more detail below. 

Transfers of hydride from boron or lithium to carbon usually occur in the context of addition of the complete M—H moiety to polar or non-polar unsaturation. Additions of boranes to alkenes have been extensively reviewed (Brown et al., 1983a), but the experimental characterization of the hydroboration transition state remains problematic. Dialkylboranes, including 9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane (Wang and Brown, 1980), borinane (Brown et al., 1984), and disiamylborane (Chandrasekharan and Brown, 1985) have now been shown to be dimeric in hydrocarbon and ethereal solvents. With unreactive alkenes, their additions are first order in alkene and half order in the dimer. With reactive terminal alkenes, the reactions are first order only in dimer, with intermediate behaviour between these extremes. A reaction scheme (10) involving reaction of monomeric borane with the alkene satisfies the data, with the observed order depending on the ratio k i/k2. 

In monoborane (BH3), monoalkylboranes RBH2, or dialkylboranes R2BII there is only an electron sextet at the boron atom. In comparison to the more stable electron octet, the boron atom thus lacks two valence electrons. It obtains them by bonding with a suitable electron pair donor. When no better donor is available, the bonding electron pair of the B—H bond of a second borane molecule acts as the donor so that a two-electron, three-center bond is produced. Under these conditions, boranes are consequently present as dimers BH3, for example, as B2H6. Still, small fractions of the monomers appear as minor components in the dissociation equilibrium of the dimer B2H6, for example, thus contains some BH3. 

During the addition of a racemic chiral dialkylborane to a racemic chiral alkene a maximum of four diastereomeric racemic trialkylboranes can be produced. Figure 3.31 illustrates this using the example of the hydroboration of 3-ethyl-l-methylcyclohexene with the cyclic borane from Figure 3.30. This hydroboration, however, has not been carried out experimentally. This should not prevent us from considering what would happen if it were performed. 

Figure 3.32 showed the reaction of our enantiomerically pure chiral cyclic dialkylborane with (Vi )-3-ethyl- l-methylcyclohexene. ft took place relatively slowly with the rate constant k6 The reaction of the same dialkylborane with the isomeric. S -alkene was shown in Figure 3.33. ft took place considerably faster with the rate constant ky The combination of the two reactions is shown in Figure 3.34. There the same enantiomerically pure borane is reacted simultaneously with both alkene enantiomers (i.e., the racemate). What is happening In the first moment of the reaction the R- and the 5-alkene react in the ratio k6 (small )/ 5 (big). The matched pair thus reacts faster than the mismatched pair. This means that at low conversions (< 50%) the trialkylborane produced is essentially derived from the 5-alkene only, ft has the stereostructure E. Therefore, relative to the main by-product F, compound E is produced...

If the hydroboration reaction is to be used to convert 1-alkynes into aldehydes, some way to stop the addition at the vinylborane stage is needed. The problem is that there is not enough steric hindrance at the end carbon of the vinylborane. The solution is to build extra steric hindrance into the other alkyl groups attached to the boron of the vinylborane. A borane, R2BH, with two bulky R groups already attached to the boron is used as the hydroboration reagent. One such reagent is prepared by the reaction of two equivalents of 2-methyl-2-butene (also known by the common name of isoamylene) with borane to produce a dialkylborane called di si amyl borane (a shortened version of diisoamylborane) ... 

Alkenylboronic acids and esters have been prepared by thermal or catalyzed hydroboration of 1-alkynes with catecholborane (HBcat), pinacolborane (HBpin), or dihaloboranes 41-43, followed by hydrolysis to boronic acids or alcoholysis to boronic esters. A convenient alternative to improve chemo- and regioselectivity is the hydroboration of alkynes with dialkylboranes. For selective removal of dummy groups, the oxidation of two cyclohexyl groups was conduced by treatment of l-alkenyl(dicyclohexyl)borane intermediates with Me3N-0 (Equation (7)).116 The... 

The chemistry of unsaturated organoboranes often differs markedly from that of their saturated analogues. Both vinylic and allylic boranes react readily with many substrates toward which trialkylboranes are inert90 . Allylic boranes can be synthesized selectively via direct hydroboration of an appropriate allene or conjugated diene and are of immense synthetic importance 91 93). Mikhailov in his book and review 7,94) has documented the synthetic applicability of allylic boranes with caution of high thermal reactivity with respect to allylic rearrangement. For example, (l-methyl-2-propenyl)dialkylboranes rearrange spontaneously to the 2-butenyl isomer even at -78 °C (Eq. 40). 

However, many mono-, dialkylboranes and heterosubstituted boranes (Chart 1) exhibit highly selective behavior in hydroboration of alkynes7). Thus, they appeared attractive for the controlled monohydroboration of alkynes for the synthesis of the desired vinylic boranes from terminal and internal alkynes (Eqs. 53 and 54). 

The mildness of these reagents tolerates the presence of various functional groups such as ester, ether, halogen, and nitrile. The stereospecific cis nature of hydroboration gives exclusively the tram alkenylboranes, often also in high regioisomeric purity (Eq. 53). On the other hand, highly pure (Z)-l-alkenyl-dialkylboranes are prepared without any difficulty via the monohydroboration of 1-halo-1-alkynes with disiamyl-borane or dicyclohexylborane, followed by treatment with t-butyllithium (Eq. 55)106). 

Asymmetric hydroboration 2171 of prochiral alkenes with monoisopinocampheyl-borane in the molar ratio of 1 1, followed by a second hydroboration of non-prochiral alkenes with the intermediate dialkylboranes, provides the chiral mixed trialkylbo-ranes. Treatment of these trialkylboranes with acetaldehyde results in the selective, facile elimination of the 3-pinanyl group, providing the corresponding chiral borinic acid esters with high enantiomeric purities. The reaction of these intermediates with base and dichloromethyl methyl ether provides the chiral ketones (Eq. 130)2l8>. A simple synthesis of secondary homoallylic alcohols with excellent enantiomeric purities via B-allyldiisopinocampheylborane has been also reported 219),... 

Hydroboration-Oxidation In Section 8-7 we saw that hydroboration-oxidation adds water across the double bonds of alkenes with anti-Markovnikov orientation. A similar reaction takes place with alkynes, except that a hindered dialkylborane must be used to prevent addition of two molecules of borane across the triple bond. Di(second-ary isoamyl)borane, called disiamylborane, adds to the triple bond only once to give a vinylborane. (Amyl is an older common name for pentyl.) In a terminal alkyne, the boron atom bonds to the terminal carbon atom. 

Asymmetric hydroboration.1 Hydroboration of 1-phenyl-1-cyclopentene with IpcBH2 (100% ee) results in a dialkylborane (1) containing the traws-2-phenylcyclopentyl group of 100% ee. However, hydroboration of prochiral trisubstituted alkenes usually results in alkylisopinocampheylboranes of 50-85% ee. Most of these products are solids, and selective crystallization (usually from ether) can give the optically pure dialkyboranes. In some cases resolution can be achieved by allowing the impure borane to age for several... 

An alternative indirect but efficient method for the bromination of all three groups of tri(primaiy alkyl)boranes involves initial reaction with mercury(II) acetate followed by in situ bromination. Alkenyldialkylboranes react with bromine to give bromoalkenes via an addition-elimination mechanism. The meftod of elimination controls the stereochemistry of the product bromoalkenes (Scheme 1). For reasons which are not clear, exactly opposite stereochemical results are obtained from (aryl-ethenyl)dialkylboranes as compared with (alkylethenyl)dialkylbotanes (Scheme 1). ... 

However, the utility of this Zweifel synthesis was limited in the past by the limited availability of dialkylboranes, because direct hydroboration leads cleanly to the formation of dialkylboranes only in the case of relatively hindered alkenes such as 2-methyl-2-butene and cyclohexene. More generally, the hydroboration fails to stop at the R2BH stages. Recent developments have provided a general preparation of a variety of dialkylboranes via the hydridation of dialkylhalo-boranes. Thus, dialkylvinylboranes prepared via the hydridation of dialkylhalo-boranes in the presence of an alkyne, react with iodine under basic conditions to produce disubstituted alkenes (Eq. 58) and trisubstituted alkenes (Eq. 59) of established stereochemistry. These results indicate a mechanism analogous to that... 

The first facially selective hydroboration of a 5-methyhdene[2.2.1]bicychc intermediate has also recently been reported. The rhodium-catalyzed hydroboration of the methylidene group with HBcat proved superior to stoichiometric borane or dialkylborane reagents, in terms of higher diastereomeric excess and chemical yields (equation 15). For instance, while borane gave 89% of the desired 5-endo product along with 11% of the 5-exo product, the catalyzed variant with HBcat gave 95% for the desired 5-endo product when the reaction was run at room temperature. No improvement in diastereoselec-tivity was observed when reactions were run at lower temperatures. 

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