Carbonyl compounds reactions under base catalysis

Acetylene is condensed with carbonyl compounds to give a wide variety of products, some of which are the substrates for the preparation of families of derivatives. The most commercially significant reaction is the condensation of acetylene with formaldehyde. The reaction does not proceed well with base catalysis which works well with other carbonyl compounds and it was discovered by Reppe (33) that acetylene under pressure (304 kPa (3 atm), or above) reacts smoothly with formaldehyde at 100°C in the presence of a copper acetyUde complex catalyst. The reaction can be controlled to give either propargyl alcohol or butynediol (see Acetylene-DERIVED chemicals). 2-Butyne-l,4-diol, its hydroxyethyl ethers, and propargyl alcohol are used as corrosion inhibitors. 2,3-Dibromo-2-butene-l,4-diol is used as a flame retardant in polyurethane and other polymer systems (see Bromine compounds Elame retardants). 

Carbonyl reactions are extremely important in chemistry and biochemistry, yet they are often given short shrift in textbooks on physical organic chemistry, partly because the subject was historically developed by the study of nucleophilic substitution at saturated carbon, and partly because carbonyl reactions are often more difhcult to study. They are generally reversible under usual conditions and involve complicated multistep mechanisms and general acid/base catalysis. In thinking about carbonyl reactions, 1 find it helpful to consider the carbonyl group as a (very) stabilized carbenium ion, with an O substituent. Then one can immediately draw on everything one has learned about carbenium ion reactivity and see that the reactivity order for carbonyl compounds ... 

The reaction can, however, be made preparative for (91) by a continuous distillation/siphoning process in a Soxhlet apparatus equilibrium is effected in hot propanone over solid Ba(OH)2 (as base catalyst), the equilibrium mixture [containing 2% (91)] is then siphoned off. This mixture is then distilled back on to the Ba(OH)2, but only propanone (b.p. 56°) will distil out, the 2% of 2-methyl-2-hydroxypentan-4-one ( diacetone alcohol , 91, b.p. 164°) being left behind. A second siphoning will add a further 2% equilibrium s worth of (91) to the first 2%, and more or less total conversion of (90) — (91) can thus ultimately be effected. These poor aldol reactions can, however, be accomplished very much more readily under acid catalysis. The acid promotes the formation of an ambient concentration of the enol form (93) of, for example, propanone (90), and this undergoes attack by the protonated form of a second molecule of carbonyl compound, a carbocation (94) ... 

Alcohols can also be prepared from support-bound carbon nucleophiles and carbonyl compounds (Table 7.4). Few examples have been reported of the a-alkylation of resin-bound esters with aldehydes or ketones. This reaction is complicated by the thermal instability of some ester enolates, which can undergo elimination of alkoxide to yield ketenes. Traces of water or alcohols can, furthermore, lead to saponification or transesterification and release of the substrate into solution. Less prone to base-induced cleavage are support-bound imides (Entry 2, Table 7.4 see also Entry 3, Table 13.8 [42]). Alternatively, support-bound thiol esters can be converted into stable silyl ketene acetals, which react with aldehydes under Lewis-acid catalysis (Entries 3 and 4, Table 7.4). 

Reactions were studied under the pseudo first-order condition of [substrate] much greater than [initial dihydroflavin]. Under these conditions, the reactions are characterized by a burst in the production of Flox followed by a much slower rate of Flox formation until completion of reaction. The initial burst is provided by the competition between parallel pseudo first-order Reactions a and b of Scheme 3. These convert dihydroflavin and carbonyl compound to an equilibrium mixture of carbinolamine and imine (Reaction a), and to Flox and alcohol (Reaction b), respectively. The slower production of Flox, following the initial burst, occurs by the conversion of carbinolamine back to reduced flavin and substrate and, more importantly, by the disproportionation of product Flox with carbinolamine (Reaction c followed by d). Reactions c and d constitute an autocatalysis by oxidized flavin of the conversion of carbinolamine back to starting dihydroflavin and substrate. In the course of these studies, the contribution of acid-base catalysis to the reactions of Scheme 3 were determined. The significant feature to be pointed out here is that carbinolamine does not undergo an elimination reaction to yield Flox and lactic acid (Equation 25). The carbinolamine (N(5)-covalent adduct) is formed in a... 

Base catalysis is not required for conjugate addition. If the nucleophile is sufficiently enolized under the reaction conditions then the enol form is perfectly able to attack the unsaturated carbonyl compound. Enols are neutral and thus soft nucleophiles favouring conjugate attack, and p-dicarbonyl compounds are enolized to a significant extent (Chapter 21). Under acidic conditions there can be absolutely no base present but conjugate addition proceeds very efficiently. In this way methyl vinyl ketone (butenone) reacts with the cyclic P-diketone promoted by acetic acid to form a quaternary centre. The yield is excellent and the triketone product is an important intermediate in steroid synthesis as you will see later in this chapter. 

Preparation of imines and enamines from carbonyl compounds and amines can be achieved with a dehydrating agent under acid/base catalysis [563]. Basically, primary amines afford imines unless isomerization to an enamine is favored as a result of conjugation, etc (see Eq. 252), and secondary amines afford iminium salts or enamines. These transformations can be conducted efficiently with a catalytic or stoichiometric amount of a titanium salt such as TiCU or Ti(0-/-Pr)4. Equation (247) illustrates an advantageous feature of this method in the imination of a hindered ketone. f-Butyl propyl ketone resisted the formation of the imine even by some methods reported useful for sterically hindered ketones [564,565]. The TiCU-based method works well, however, for this compound, giving the desired imine in high yield within a relatively short reaction period [566]. Imine derivatives such as iV-sulfonylimines could be... 

The use of transition metal species can lower appreciably the decomposition temperature of ot-diazo-carbonyl compounds they can also alter the reactivity of the carbene intermediate (resulting from the initial nitrogen elimination see Section 3.9.2.1) by complex formation. Hence, the Wolff rearrangement may occur with difficulty or, usually, not at all. Thus, some copper species (excepting, for example, Cul), or Rh and Pd catalysts are inappropriate. Freshly prepared silver(I) oxide has been used most frequently, but silver salts (especially silver benzoate) are sometimes preferred.Silver-based catalysts are usually employed in combination with an alkaline reagent e.g. sodium carbonate or a tertiary amine). Even under silver catalysis competing reactions may be observed, and sometimes the products of Wolff rearrangement may not be obtained (see Section 3.9.2.3). 

Having established the positive effect of the presence of water, let us examine which protocols are to be adopted and which are deleterious in terms of catalytic activity and overall stereocontrol.The first protocols reported in DMSO did not focus on the presence of water but it is likely that the required trace amount was present as contaminant of the solvent used. The procedure to avoid is a homogeneous reaction in water as solvent using water-soluble carbonyl compounds in this case reactions likely proceed under general base catalysis mechanisms, resulting in very poor conversions and lack of enantio-control. Thus, two useful approaches for reactions in water are available in the... 

Furthermore, this reaction cycle (Figure 7) contains the reaction of a carbonyl compound with the simplest nucleophile, the hydride anion, both under neutral and under acidic conditions. Thus, these studies bear significance for an understanding of acid-base catalysis. 

Direct Silylation of Heteroarylcarbonyl Compounds. Under ruthenium catalysis vinyltrimethylsilane reacts to ortho silyl-ate heteroaryl carbonyl compounds directly in good yields (eqs 32 and 33). The reaction only works with heteroaromatic systems. The resulting aryltrimethylsilanes can be used to introduce electrophiles regioselectively through electrophilic desilyla-tion. The reaction also works with vinyltriethoxysilane, opening the possibility of silicon-based cross-coupling reactions. 

Many important organic reactions involve nucleophilic carbon species (car-banions). The properties of carbanions will be discussed in detail in Chapter 7 and in Part B, Chapters 1 and 2. Most C-H bonds are very weakly acidic and have no tendency to form carbanions spontaneously. Reactions that involve carbanion species are therefore often carried out by reaction of a neutral organic molecule with an electrophile in the presence of a base. Under these conditions, a nucleophilic carbon species is formed when the base abstracts a proton from the neutral organic molecule. Base-catalyzed condensation of carbonyl compounds is an example. The reaction of acetophenone and benzaldehyde which was considered in Section 4.2, for example, requires base catalysis to proceed and the kinetics show that the rate is proportional to the catalyst concentration. This is because the neutral acetophenone molecule is not nucleophilic and does not react with benzaldehyde. The enolate formed by deprotonation is much more nucleophilic and the reaction proceeds through this intermediate. 

---