Boronic acids, carbonylation with conjugated ketones

Monomers with electron-rich double bonds produce one-to-one copolymers with monomers having electron-poor double bonds in reaction systems that also contain certain Lewis acids. These latter are halides or alkyl halides of nontransition metal elements, including AlCb, ZnCh, SnCL, BF3, AI(CH2CH3)Cl2, alkyl boron halides, and other compounds. The acceptor monomer generally has a cyano or carbonyl group conjugated to a vinyl double bond. Examples are acrylic and methacrylic acids and their esters, acrylonitrile, vinyl ketones, maleic anydride, fumaric esters, vinylidene cyanide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide. The variety of donor molecules is large and includes various olefins, styrene, isoprene, vinyl halides and esters, vinylidene halides, and allyl monomers [30]. 

Boron or tin (II) Z-enolates are generated by reaction with the corresponding triflates with a carbonyl compound in the presence of tertiary amines like r-P NEt or. M-ethylpiperidine (except when using dicyclopentylboron triflate [407]). E-Enolates are prepared by using dicyclohexyl- or other cyclic chloroboranes in the presence of Et3N or Me NEt [407, 685, 686, 1246, 1247, 1248], Because enolization does not take place under such conditions with esters or aliphatic tertiary amides, thiophenyl esters RGH COSPh have been used as ester/amide substitutes. Furthermore, Z-boron enolates of ketones can be prepared by conjugate addition of acid derivatives of dialkylboranes to a-enones [687],... 

These trends agree with the frontier orbital analysis. In particular, the delivery of hydride from carbon breaks a relatively unpolarised bond, making the hydride notably soft, as we saw earlier in its capacity to attack pyridinium salts preferentially at the 4-position. The metal hydrogen bond will be more polarised, and metal hydrides should therefore be harder. Similarly, the delivery of hydride from boron will make it softer than when it is delivered from the more electropositive metal, aluminium. It also seems that, among a,(3-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, the susceptibility to conjugate reduction increases in the sequence ketones < esters < acids < amides but there are too few examples to be sure. 

Borane reacts with carboxylic acids first of all to form triacylborates, with evolution of hydrogen gas. Esters are usually less electrophilic than ketones because of conjugation between the carbonyl group and the lone pair of the sp hybridized oxygen atom—but, in these boron esters, the oxygen next to the boron has to share its lone pair between the carbonyl group and the boron s empty p orbital, so they are considerably more reactive than normal esters. 

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