Carboxylic acids from boranes

As shown in the scheme below, starting from the amino acid valine, reduction of the carboxylic acid with borane and reaction with diethyl carbonate produces the... 

Sodium borohydride does not reduce the free carboxylic group, but borane prepared from sodium borohydride and boron trifluoride etherate in tetrahydrofuran converts aliphatic acids to alcohols at 0-25° in 89-100% yields... 

Reduction of aromatic carboxylic acids to alcohols can be achieved by hydrides and complex hydrides, e.g. lithium aluminum hydride 968], sodium aluminum hydride [55] and sodium bis 2-methoxyethoxy)aluminum hydride [544, 969, 970], and with borane (diborane) [976] prepared from sodium borohydride and boron trifluoride etherate [971, 977] or aluminum chloride [755, 975] in diglyme. Sodium borohydride alone does not reduce free carboxylic acids. Anthranilic acid was reduced to the corresponding alcohol by electroreduction in sulfuric acid at 20-30° in 69-78% yield [979],... 

The key sequence in a somewhat involved stereospecihc total synthesis of a carbacephem starts by preparation of a chiral auxiliary. It is interesting to note that nitrogen is the only atom from this molecule retained in the hnal product. Constmction of this moiety starts with the formation of the carbethoxy derivative (37-2) from L(- -)-phenylglycine (37-1). Selective reduction of the free carboxyl group with borane. THF leads to the hydroxycarbamate (37-3). In a one-pot sequence, this is first cyclized to the corresponding oxazolidinone (37-4) by means of sodium hydride and then alkylated with ethyl bromoacetate (37-5). Saponification of the side chain then affords the chiral acetic acid (37-6). The carboxyl group is then activated by conversion to its acid chloride (37-7). 

The alkylation of activated halogen compounds is one of several reactions of trialkyl-boranes developed by H. C. Brown1560 (see also 5-12, 5-19, 8-24 to 8-28, etc ). These compounds are extremely versatile and can be used for the preparation of many types of compounds. In this reaction, for example, an alkene (through the BR3 prepared from it) can be coupled to a ketone, a nitrile, a carboxylic ester, or a sulfonyl derivative. Note that this is still another indirect way to alkylate a ketone (see 0-95) or a carboxylic acid (see 0-96), and provides an additional alternative to the malonic ester and acetoacetic ester syntheses (0-94). 

A most convenient procedure for the conversion of carboxylic acids to aldehydes results from their initial treatment with borane-dimethyl sulphide to give first, the triacyloxyborane (9), which is then reduced further to the intermediate (10) the trimer of (10) is the trialkyloxyboroxine (11). Oxidation of (11) with PCC then yields the aldehyde.110 The method is illustrated for the preparation of octanal (Expt 5.81), but it has been applied to cyclohexanecarboxylic acid and to various aromatic carboxylic acids (X-C6H4C02H, X = p-Cl, NOz, OMe, ni-CN). 

Acyloxyboranes. Yamamoto et a/.1 have used the known reactivity of borane with carboxylic acids to activate acrylic acids for Diels-Alder reactions. Thus addition of BH3-THF to acrylic acids at 0° furnishes an acyloxyborane formulated as 1, which undergoes cycloaddition (equations I and II). The reaction proceeds satisfactorily even when borane is used in catalytic amounts. A chiral acyloxyborane, BL, prepared from a tartaric acid derivative, can serve as a catalyst for an asymmetric Diels-Alder reaction (equation III). 

Tris(organoamino)boranes have been utilized to prepare, in reasonable yields,4,5 mono- and dihalo(organoamino)boranes which are often difficult to obtain by direct amination of the boron trihalides. Carboxylic acids, 1,3-diketones, ketones, and /3-ketoesters have been converted into carboxamides, enamino-ketones, enamines, and j -enamino-amides, respectively, by reaction with an appropriate tris(organoamino)borane under very mild conditions.6 Sulfenamides (R2NSC6H5) have also been prepared in high yield from selected tris(organoamino)boranes and sulfenic esters under relatively mild conditions.7... 

Hemiacetals are formed from hydroxy aldehydes " or ketones which are usually first in a protected form and are deblocked prior to cyclization. Ozonolysis of cyclohexene derivative 5 and reductive workup, followed by hydrolysis of the acid chloride formed in situ and borane reduction of the carboxylic acid, leads to the six-membered hemiacetal 6. a precursor for fluo-rinated sugars that are potentially versatile as molecular probes in the elucidation of biochemical processes. ... 

Asymmetric Diels-Alder Reaction of Unsaturated Carboxylic Acids. A chiral acyloxyborane (CAB) complex (1) prepared from mono(2,6-dimethoxybenzoyl)tartaric acid and 1 equiv of borane is an excellent catalyst for the Diels-Alder reaction of a,p-unsaturated carboxylic acids and dienes. In the CAB-catalyzed Diels-Alder reaction, adducts are formed in a highly diastereo- and enantioselective manner under mild reaction conditions (eq 2). The reaction is catalytic 10 mol % of catalyst is sufficient for efficient conversion, and the chiral auxiliary can be recovered and reused. 

Another promising approach has been devised by Yamamoto and co-workers [8]. They found that the action of a controlled amount of diborane on a carboxylic acid leads to an (acyloxy)borane RC02BR 2 which behaves as a Lewis acid. The chiral (acyloxy)borane (CAB) complex 1 formed in situ from monoacyl tartaric acid and diborane is an excellent asymmetric catalyst (Eq. 8) for the Diels-Alder reaction of cyclopentadiene and acrylic acid (78 % ee) (Eq. 9) [8] or of cyclopentadiene and methacrolein (96 % ee) (Eq. 10) [9]. 

Further adaptations of the boranes has led to reagents which reduce carboxylic acids but afford thio-acetals rather than the aldehyde itself.Thus, with the thioborane (3 equation 1), aliphatic acids give 80-87% yields of thioacetals but aromatic acids respond less well in giving significant quantities of sulfides as well. Carboxylic acid esters are inert to this reagent but give sulfides if a Lewis acid is included. Similarly, the 1,3,2-dithiaborinane-dimethyl sulfide adduct (4 equation 2) affords cyclic dithioacetals in 70-90% isolated yields in the presence of SnCb. Aliphatic acids react in about 6 h at room temperature but aromatic acids need about 20 h and yields are somewhat poorer. This area has been reviewed.From a practical viewpoint, it should be noted that the dithiaborinane (4) requires a week for its preparation. 

Reduction of saturated carboxylic acids with the borane derivative, thexylchloro-borane, provides a direct route to aldehydes without their prior conversion to carboxylic acid derivatives. The aldehydes initially formed were isolated either as their bisulfite adducts or as their hydrazones, from which the aldehydes were regenerated. 

Lithium aminoborohydrides are obtained by the reaction of -BuLi with amine-boranes [FF2, FH5, NT2]. They can be generated in situ as THF solutions or as solids when formed in diethylether or hexane (n-BuLi must then be used in sub-stoichiometric amounts). They are stable under dry air and are slowly decomposed by water [NT2] or methanol so that workup of the reactions mixtures can be carried out with 3M HCl. They reduce alkyl halides (Section 2.1), epoxides (Section 2.3), aldehydes, and ketones (Section 3.2.1) (in the latter case with an interesting stereoselectivity [HFl]), and esters to primary alcohols (Section 3.2.5). a,(3-Unsaturated aldehydes, ketones, and esters are reduced to allyl alcohols (Section 3.2.9) [FF2, FS2]. Depending on the bulkiness of the amines associated with the reagent and to the substrate, tertiary amides give amines or alcohols (Section 3.2.8) [FFl, FF2]. Amines are also formed from imines (Section 3.3.1) [FB1 ] and from azides (Section 5.2) [AFl]. However, carboxylic acids remain untouched. 

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