Carbon-oxygen bonds ethers

Carbon-oxygen bonds are formed by the Ullmann reaction (- coupling of aryl halides with copper) which has been varied in alkaloid chemistry to produce diaryl ethers instead of biaryls. This is achieved by the use of CuO in basic media (T. Kametani, 1969 R.W. Dos-kotch, 1971). 

Typical carbon-oxygen bond distances m ethers are similar to those of alcohols (—142 pm) and are shorter than carbon-carbon bond distances m alkanes (—153 pm) An ether oxygen affects the conformation of a molecule m much the same way that a CH2 unit does The most stable conformation of diethyl ether is the all staggered anti conformation Tetrahydropyran is most stable m the chair conformation—a fact that has an important bearing on the structures of many carbohydrates... 

Their polar carbon-oxygen bonds and the presence of unshared electron pairs at oxygen contribute to the ability of ethers to form Lewis acid Lewis base complexes with metal ions... 

A long standing method for the preparation of ethers is the Williamson ether synthesis Nucleophilic substitution of an alkyl halide by an alkoxide gives the carbon-oxygen bond of an ether... 

Just as the carbon-oxygen bond of alcohols is cleaved on reaction with hydrogen halides (Section 4 8) so too is an ether linkage broken... 

With mixed ethers of the type ROR the question of which carbon-oxygen bond... 

Section 16 3 The carbon-oxygen bond of ethers is polar and ethers can act as proton acceptors m hydrogen bonds with water and alcohols... 

The cleavage of dialkyl ethers by hydrogen halides was discussed in Section 16 8 where It was noted that the same pair of alkyl halides results irrespective of the order in which the carbon-oxygen bonds of the ether are broken... 

Alkyl silyl ethers are cleaved by a variety of reagents Whether the silicon-oxygen or the carbon-oxygen bond is cleaved depends on the nature of the reagent used Treatment of alkoxysilanes with electrophilic reagents like antimony tri-fluonde, 40% hydrofluonc acid, or a boron tnfluonde-ether complex results in the cleavage of the silicon-oxygen bond to form mono-, di-, and tnfluorosiloxanes or silanes [19, 20, 21) (equations 18-20)... 

Benzyl and alkyl tnalkylsilyl ethers undergo clean fluonnation to give good yields of benzyl and alkyl fluorides, respectively, when reacted with a combination of d quaternary ammonium fluoride and methanesulfonyl orp- toluenesulfonyl fluoride. The reactions are applicable strictly to a primary carbon-oxygen bond, secondary and tertiary alkyl silyl ethers remain intact or, under forcing conditions, aie dehydrated to olefins [29] (equation 22)... 

Typical carbon-oxygen bond distances in ethers are similar to those of alcohols (—142 pm) and are shorter than carbon-carbon bond distances in alkanes (—153 pm). 

Cleavage of Carbon-Oxygen Bonds in Ethers and Esters... 

The cleavage of carbon-oxygen bonds in ethers or esters by nucleophilic substitution is frequently a useful synthetic transformation. 

The asymmetric Darzens condensation, which involves both carbon-carbon and carbon-oxygen bond constructions, was realized by use of the chiral azacrown ether 75als2,s ,ss and the quaternary ammonium salts derived from cinchona alka-loids159"621 under phase transfer catalyzed conditions. The a,p-epoxy ketone 80 (R=Ph) was obtained with reasonable enantioselectivity by the reaction of... 

In this reaction, only the benzylic carbonate can react readily since cleavage of the benzylic carbon-oxygen bond leads to a stabilized carbocation while no such stabilization would exist for the hypothetical products which would be obtained by cleavage of the phenyl carbonate. The benzylic carbocation intermediate which is formed can either eliminate to the corresponding styrene 4 or recombine with the nucleophilic methanol which is formed by decarboxylation. It is the latter reaction which appears to prevail at room temperature as the ether 2 can be isolated in excellent yield. Subsequent heating in the presence of acid catalyst drives the reaction to the elimination product 6 and free methanol. 

On the other hand, in cyclic ethers (alkene oxides, oxetans, tetrahydrofuran) and formals the reaction site is a carbon-oxygen bond, the oxygen atom is the most basic point, and, hence, cationic polymerization is possible. The same considerations apply to the polymerization of lactones Cherdron, Ohse and Korte showed that with very pure monomers polyesters of high molecular weight could be obtained with various cationic catalysts and syncatalysts, and proposed a very reasonable mechanism involving acyl fission of the ring [89]. 

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... 

Nickel-catalyzed electroreductive cleavage of the carbon-oxygen bond of allyl ethers has been reported [356], The influence of the nature of the ligands associated to the Ni center tends to determine the chemoselectivity of the above reaction [357]. 

Alone formed by the reaction of lithium aluminum hydride and aluminum chloride in ether cleaves exclusively the carbon-oxygen bond in cyclic monothioketals derived from ketones and mercaptoethanol, and on refluxing in 100% excess for 2 hours produces -hydroxyethyl sulfides (yields 66-91%) on prolonged heating with the reagent these -hydroxyethyl sulfides are further reduced to the corresponding ethyl sulfides (thioethers) (yields 28-81%) [936]. 

The different reactivity of both carbon-chlorine and carbon-oxygen bonds toward arene-catalyzed lithiation (see Scheme 129) was applied to 3-chloropropyl phenyl ether... 

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. 

SECTION 3.3. NUCLEOPHILIC CLEAVAGE OF CARBON-OXYGEN BONDS IN ETHERS AND ESTERS... 

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