Carbon monoxide, reaction with organolithium compounds

Acyl anions (RC(=0)M) are unstable, and quickly dimerize at temperatures >-100 °C (Section 5.4.7). These intermediates are best generated by reaction of organolithium compounds or cuprates with carbon monoxide at -110 °C and should be trapped immediately by an electrophile [344—347]. Metalated formic acid esters (R0C(=0)M) have been generated as intermediates by treatment of alcoholates with carbon monoxide, and can either be protonated to yield formic acid esters, or left to rearrange to carboxylates (R0C(=0)M —> RC02M) (Scheme 5.38) [348]. Related intermediates are presumably also formed by treatment of alcohols with formamide acetals (Scheme 5.38) [349]. More stable than acyl lithium compounds are acyl silanes or transition metal acyl complexes, which can also be used to perform nucleophilic acylations [350],... 

As described in Section II.A, the tandem sequence reaction of organolithium compounds with carbon monoxide followed by reaction with suitable electrophiles provides an useful tool for the preparation of diphenyldialkyl carbinols, and the reaction could be easily extended to produce substituted cyclic ethers in a one-pot synthesis. Thus, by carrying out the carbonylation of phenyllithium in the presence of conveniently substituted chloroalkyl bromides, Br(CH2)3+ Cl, at -78 °C, the oxo-lithiated intermediates 243 are obtained and cyclized to 244 by warming up the reaction mixture (Scheme 74)21. 

The synthetic applications of acyllithiums, generated by reaction of organolithium compounds with carbon monoxide, by treatment with electrophiles started when Nudelman and coworkers found that phenyllithium reacted with carbon monoxide in the presence of alkyl bromides to yield diphenylalkylcarbinols24,27. a-Hydroxy-a-phenylacetophenone was also obtained resulting from the dimerization of the carbene intermediate of type 3. In the absence of electrophiles a,a-diphenylacetophenone was obtained in 94% yield, attributed to the dimerization of the corresponding aroyl anion radical28. 

Organomagnesium compounds are less reactive than organolithium compounds [E] towards carbon monoxide and metal carbonyls. The initial reaction with carbon monoxide is similar — addition to give an acylmagnesium compound ... 

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