Carbonyl compounds reactions with sulfonyl-stabilized carbanions

The Julia olefination involves the addition of a sulfonyl-stabilized carbanion to a carbonyl compound, followed by elimination to form an alkene.277 In the initial versions of the reaction, the elimination was done under reductive conditions. More recently, a modified version that avoids this step was developed. The former version is sometimes referred to as the Julia-Lythgoe olefination, whereas the latter is called the Julia-Kocienski olefination. In the reductive variant, the adduct is usually acylated and then treated with a reducing agent, such as sodium amalgam or samarium diiodide.278... 

When chloromethyl phenyl sulfone (130 Ar = phenyl) was subjected to the Darzens-type reaction with an aldehyde, a thermodynamically stable trans isomer (133) was produced exclusively (equation 32). This is in sharp contrast with the corresponding reaction of chloromethyl phenyl sulfoxide. Tavares proposed that the initial nucleophilic attack of the a-sulfonyl carbanion upon a carbonyl compound is rapidly reversible due to its stability, and that the product-determining step is the ring closure. Thermodynamic equilibrium between the two diastereomers of (132) allows predominant formation of the thermodynamically stable isomer (133) from the preferred transition state. ... 

In its original form,94 the Julia reaction consisted of the formation of a carbon-carbon double bond through the coupling of a sulfonyl-stabilized anion and a carbonyl compound to generate a P-hydroxy sulfone, followed by a reductive elimination to afford the alkene (Eq. 47). A subsequent study of its scope and stereochemistry led to improved reaction conditions, which are now widely used.206 Alternative methods to synthesize the P-hydroxy sulfone intermediates, such as the addition of sulfonyl carbanions to esters with subsequent reduction of the ketone to the P-hydroxy sulfone, are also known (Eq. 121).207... 

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