Carbon-oxygen bonds intermolecular additions

Sakurai et al. have provided what is probably the most important mechanistic finding in the area of intermolecular additions of silenes in recent years, namely a detailed proposal for the mechanism of alcohol addition to the silicon-carbon double bond.68 A cyclic silene 116 was synthesized in the presence of various amounts of methanol and other alcohols, and varying proportions of methanol adducts 117 and 118 were obtained. It was concluded that the methanolysis involved two steps, the first being the association of the oxygen lone pairs with the sp 2-hybridized silicon atom of the silene. The second step, proton transfer, could occur in two ways. If the proton was transferred from the complexed methanol molecule (path a) its delivery would result in syn addition. However, if a second molecule of methanol participated (path b), it would deliver its proton... 

Although the high reactivity of metal-chalcogen double bonds of isolated heavy ketones is somewhat suppressed by the steric protecting groups, Tbt-substituted heavy ketones allow the examination of their intermolecular reactions with relatively small substrates. The most important feature in the reactivity of a carbonyl functionality is reversibility in reactions across its carbon-oxygen double bond (addition-elimination mechanism via a tetracoordinate intermediate) as is observed, for example, in reactions with water and alcohols. The energetic basis... 

Chiral methylzinc aminoalkoxides 146a-c were obtained from the reaction of ZnMe2 with aminoalcohols, having chiral centers in their carbon backbones (Scheme 92).211 The methylzinc aminoalkoxides crystallize dimeric and trimeric with the formation of intermolecular zinc-oxygen bonds and creation of additional chiral centers. 

Unlike many other type of radical addition reactions, the product is most often an alkyl-cobalt(III) species capable of further manipulation. These product Co—C bonds have been converted in good yields to carbon-oxygen (alcohol, acetate), carbon-nitrogen (oxime, amine), carbon-halogen, carbon-sulfur (sulfide, sulfinic acid) and carbon-selenium bonds (equations 179 and 180)354. Exceptions to this rule are the intermolecular additions to electron-deficient olefins, in which the putative organocobalt(III) species eliminates to form an a,/ -unsaturated carbonyl compound or styrene353 or is reduced (under electrochemical conditions) to the alkane (equation 181)355. 

The crossover product, propionaldehyde-l,3-d-3- C 12, clearly demonstrated that the isomerization occurred via intermolecular 1,3-hydrogen shift. These results are consistent with a modified metal hydride addition-elimination mechanism which involves exclusive 1,3-hydrogen shift through oxygen-directed Markovnikov addition of the metal hydride to the carbon-carbon double bond (Scheme 12.2). The directing effect of functional groups on the selectivity of transition metal catalysis is well presented [9], and an analogous process appears to be operative in the isomerization of allylamines to enamines [10]. 

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