Carbon=oxygen bond addition

Additions Forming Carbon-Oxygen Bonds by L. G. Sprague... 

During the insertion mechanism, the metal is inserted into the carbon-oxygen bond. The insertion is promoted by a strong metal—oxygen interaction. It is thought that unreduced metal ions may play an important role in the insertion mechanism (electrophilic catalysis). The type of the catalyst, the method of preparation, and the additives can influence the concentration and stability of these ions. 

At the outset it is important to clarify the scope of this discussion by the elimination of areas which will not be considered. When one notes that the term "activation of carbon monoxide" may mean a process as little perturbative of the C-0 bond as its end-on attachment to a metal atom in carbonyls, or as strongly perturbative as its dissociation to atoms on a metal surface, the need for limits becomes obvious. In this discussion we will consider only the activation of carbon monoxide in the sense that isolable products are formed by the addition of hydrogen to the molecule without complete rupture of all carbon-oxygen bonds, oxygenates are formed. 

Oxidative addition involving carbon-to-oxygen bonds is of relevance to the catalysis with palladium complexes. The most reactive carbon-oxygen bond is that between allylic fragments and carboxylates. The reaction starts with a palladium zero complex and the product is a ir-allylic palladium(II) carboxylate Figure 2.16. 

Poly(phenylene oxide) PPO, or poly(phenylene ether) PPE, is an engineering polymer developed by General Electric. It concerns the oxidative coupling of phenols discovered in 1956 by Allan S. Hay [21], Oxidative coupling leads to the formation of carbon-oxygen bonds between carbon atoms 2,4, and 6 and the phenolic oxygen atom. To avoid coupling with carbon atoms 2 and 6, alkyl substituents at these two positions were introduced. In addition to the polymer a 4,4 dimer is formed, named diphenoquinone (DPQ). The... 

Conjugate addition of methanol to a,/l-unsaturated carbonyl compounds forms a new carbon-oxygen bond to yield valuable ethers (Scheme 26). Kabashima et al. (12) reported the conjugate addition of methanol to 3-buten-2-one on alkaline oxides, hydroxides, and carbonates at a temperature of 273 K. The activities of the catalyst follow the order alkaline earth metal oxides > alkaline earth metal hydroxides > alkaline earth metal carbonates. All alkaline earth metal oxides exhibited high catalytic activities and, as in alcohol condensations and nitroaldol reactions, their catalytic activities were not much affected by exposure to CO2 and air. 

The second example is more reasonable but 3-phenyl-l,3-oxazetidin-3-one is obtained in low yield from formaldehyde tetramer and phenyl isocyanate (Scheme 92) (67TL3637). Perhalogenated (F or Cl) ketones also add to methylisocyanate catalyzed by CsF, BF3 or in liquid S02 solvent in 5-70% yield (67JOC2960). Dichloroethylene is reported to add to benzoyl isocyanate in 23% yield, also by addition across the carbon-oxygen bond of the isocyanate (70BAU1479). 

Many classes of perfluoroethers such as acyclic [63], cyclic [64, 65], glymes [66,67], highly branched [63],macrocyclic [68-73], orthoformates [74-76] and poly-ethers [15, 77], have been succesfully prepared in high yield by direct fluorination techniques (Figs. 19 and 20). Carbon-oxygen bond cleavage is minimised in these processes by the addition of an HF scavenger, such as sodium fluoride, to the reaction mixture [14,45,46]. 

In the discussion of the general base catalyzed addition step above (p. 120) the objection was raised that it was difficult to believe that general base catalysis would be necessary for the addition of water to so reactive a species as a protonated ester. An answer to this objection is implicit in the discussion above of the mechanism of hydrolysis of orthoesters. It appears that the protonated orthoester, which would be the initial product of the simple addition of a molecule of water to a protonated ester, is too reactive a species to exist in aqueous solution, and that carbon-oxygen bond-cleavage is concerted with the transfer of the proton to the orthoester. The formation of a protortated orthoester by the addition of a molecule of water to the conjugate acid of an ester will be even less likely, and it seems entirely reasonable, therefore, that the formation of the neutral orthoester, by a general base catalyzed process, should be the favoured mechanism. 

Acyl halides have a rather positive carbonyl carbon because of the polarization of the carbon-oxygen and carbon-halogen bonds. Addition of a nucleophilic group such as the oxygen of an alcohol occurs rather easily. 

The two possible valence-bond structures of the enolate anion, 7a and 7b, show that the anion should act as an ambident nucleophile—a nucleophile with nucleophilic properties associated with both carbon and oxygen. The addition step in the aldol reaction therefore may be expected to take place in either of two ways The anion could attack as a carbon nucleophile to form a carbon-carbon bond, 8, leading ultimately to the aldol 9, or it might attack as an oxygen nucleophile to form a carbon-oxygen bond, thereby leading to the hemiacetal 10. By this reasoning, we should obtain a mixture of products 9 and 10. However, the aldol 9 is the only one of these two possible products that can be isolated ... 

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