Carboxylic acids exchange with acyl halides

These reactions are most important for the preparation of acyl fluorides. " Acyl chlorides and anhydrides can be converted to acyl fluorides by treatment with polyhydrogen fluoride-pyridine solution" or with liquid HF at — 10°C. Formyl fluoride, which is a stable compound, was prepared by the latter procedure from the mixed anhydride of formic and acetic acids. Acyl fluorides can also be obtained by reaction of acyl chlorides with KF in acetic acid or with DAST. Carboxylic esters and anhydrides can be converted to acyl halides other than fluorides by the inorganic acid halides mentioned in 10-77, as well as with PhsPXa (X = Cl or but this is seldom done. Halide exchange can be carried out in a... 

Acyl halides are so reactive that hydrolysis is easily carried out. ° In fact, most simple acyl halides must be stored under anhydrous conditions lest they react with water in the air. Consequently, water is usually a strong enough nucleophile for the reaction, though in difficult cases hydroxide ion may be required. The reaction is seldom synthetically useful, because acyl halides are normally prepared from acids. The reactivity order is F < Cl < Br < If a carboxylic acid is used as the nucleophile, an exchange may take place (see 16-79). The mechanism ° of hydrolysis can be either SnI or tetrahedral, the former occurring in highly polar solvents... 

The enolates of aldehydes and ketones undergo deuterium exchange, bromination, and alkylation reactions (Sections 22.4—22.6). Carboxylic acid derivatives react similarly. However, the added possibility of a competing nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction limits some of the substitution reactions at the a-carbon atom of acid derivatives. For example, acyl halides react with most bases in substitution reactions at the carbonyl carbon atom rather than by abstraction of the a-hydrogen atom. On the other hand, the pA of the a-hydrogen atoms of amides is very large, and these derivatives would require a very strong base for formation of enolates for synthetic reactions. Esters are the most convenient acyl derivatives for enolate formation and subsequent substitution at the a-carbon atom. The substituted ester can subsequently be converted into other acyl derivatives. 

Polymeric amines can be proton acceptors, acyl transfer agents, or ligands for metal ions. The 2- and 4-isomers of poly(vinylpyridine) (11) and (12) and the weakly basic ion exchange resins, p-dimethylaminomethylated PS (2) and poly(2-dimethylaminoethyl acrylate), are commercial. The ion exchange resins are catalysts for aldol condensations, Knoevenagel condensations, Perkin reactions, cyanohydrin formation and redistributions of chlorosilanes. " The poly(vinylpyridine)s have been used in stoichiometric amounts for preparation of esters from acid chlorides and alcohols, and for preparation of trimethylsilyl ethers and trimethylsilylamines from chlorotrimethylsilane and alcohols or amines. Polymer-suppored DBU (l,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene) (52) in stoichiometric amounts promotes dehydrohalogenation of alkyl bromides and esterification of carboxylic acids with alkyl halides. The protonated tertiary amine resins are converted to free base form by treatment with aqueous sodium hydroxide. 

In this chapter, we will be discussing the chemistry of carboxylic acids, esters, acyl halides, anhydrides, and amides. This is dominated by substitution, where one group is exchanged with another. Substitution is NOT possible for aldehydes and ketones, as you can t displace H or — they are hopeless leaving groups. First, let s review some nomenclature. The suffix for carboxylic acids is -oic acid and the carbonyl of the acid is always numbered as C-1. The acid takes precedence over most other functional groups. Some examples are shown in Figure 15.1. Notice that when we have both a ketone and an acid in the molecule, it is named as a carboxylic acid, and the ketone is described as oxo. ... 

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