Carboxylic esters, acylation hydrogenation

The acetoacetic ester condensation (involving the acylation of an ester by an ester) is a special case of a more general reaction term the Claisen condensation. The latter is the condensation between a carboxylic ester and an ester (or ketone or nitrile) containing an a-hydrogen atom in the presence of a base (sodium, sodium alkoxide, sodamide, sodium triphenylmethide, etc.). If R—H is the compound containing the a- or active hydrogen atom, the Claisen condensation may be written ... 

Aldehydes and ketones can be converted to ethers by treatment with an alcohol and triethylsilane in the presence of a strong acid or by hydrogenation in alcoholic acid in the presence of platinum oxide. The process can formally be regarded as addition of ROH to give a hemiacetal RR C(OH)OR", followed by reduction of the OH. In this respect, it is similar to 16-14. In a similar reaction, ketones can be converted to carboxylic esters (reductive acylation of ketones) by treatment with an acyl chloride and triphenyltin hydride. " ... 

If the alcoholate or the alkylating reagent contains a carboxylic acid ester, acylation of the alcoholate can compete with alkylation. This potential side reaction does not cause trouble in the examples sketched in Scheme 6.14 (first and third reactions), because these esters are sterically hindered and devoid of a hydrogen (no ketene formation can occur) but, as illustrated in Scheme 6.15, less hindered esters can readily undergo transesterification with alcoholates. 

Dialkyl acylphosphonates are used for acylation of alcohols. Kabachnik [236] reported that dimethyl benzoylphosphonate formed crystalline 1 1 addition products with aUphatic alcohols, which can be converted in the presence of dry hydrogen chloride into carboxylic esters and dimethyl H-phosphonate in moderate yields. Sakurai reported that dialkyl acylphosphonates underwent slow acylation with a large excess amount of alcohols to give esters [237]. It was shown that triethylamine catalyzed acylation of alcohols with dialkyl acylphosphonates [238]. It was found that use of l,5-diazabicyclo[5,4,0]undec-5-ene (DBU) increased the rate of the acylation of alcohols with diethyl benzoylphosphonate dramatically [239]. When one equivalent of DBU was used in CHjClj, the acylation was completed within 10 min and the corresponding ester 1 was obtained in 99% yield. The use of 0.1 equivalent of DBU gave 1 in 95% yield. Under this condition, the formation of 3 was suppressed remarkably and only a trace of 3 was formed. 

Most frequently the polymerization process is initiated by free radicals obtained through the decomposition of hydroperoxides, alkyl peroxides, dialkyl peroxides, acyl peroxides, carboxylic ester peracids, salts of (tetraoxo)sulphuric acid, hydrogen peroxide, aliphatic azo compounds and bifunctional azobenzoin initiators. The rate of decomposition of different initiators into free radicals depends on their stmcture and on temperature. A measure of the efficiency of the initiator in the pol5mierization process is the half-decomposition period. 

During electrochemical fluorination retention of important functional groups or atoms in molecules is essential. Acyl fluorides and chlorides, but not carboxylic acids and anhydrides (which decarboxylate), survive perfluorination to the perfluorinated acid fluorides, albeit with some cyclization in longer chain (>C4) species [73]. Electrochemical fluorination of acetyl fluoride produces perfluoro-acetyl fluoride in 36-45% yields [85]. Electrochemical fluorination of octanoyl chloride results in perfluorinated cyclic ethers as well as perfluorinated octanoyl fluonde. Cyclization decreases as initial substrate concentration increases and has been linked to hydrogen-bonded onium polycations [73]. Cyclization is a common phenomenon involving longer (>C4) and branched chains. a-Alkyl-substituted carboxylic acid chlorides, fluorides, and methyl esters produce both the perfluorinated cyclic five- and six-membered ring ethers as well as the perfluorinated acid... 

Anhydrides are reduced with relative ease. McAlees and McCrindle 20) established the following increasing order of difficulty for various carbonyls acid chlorides > aldehydes, ketones > anhydrides > esters > carboxylic acids > amides. Reduction may proceed by 1,2-addilion of hydrogen or by cleavage of an oxygen-carbonyl bond. If 1,2-addition to the carbonyl occurs, as in the presence of strong protic acids over palladium, 1,1-diesters are formed by acylation 26). 

In the course of this study, the authors determined /Lvalues for dibenzyl, methyl phenyl, methyl p-nitrophenyl, di-p-tolyl, di-isopropyl and tetramethylene sulphoxides and for diethyl, dipropyl and dibutyl sulphites. The /Lscales are applied to the various reactions or the spectral measurements. The /Lscales have been divided into either family-dependent (FD) types, which means two or more compounds can share the same /Lscale, family-independent (FI) types. Consequently, a variety of /Lscales are now available for various families of the bases, including 29 aldehydes and ketones, 17 carboxylic amides and ureas, 14 carboxylic acids esters, 4 acyl halides, 5 nitriles, 10 ethers, 16 phosphine oxides, 12 sulphinyl compounds, 15 pyridines and pyrimidines, 16 sp3 hybridized amines and 10 alcohols. The enthalpies of formation of the hydrogen bond of 4-fluorophenol with both sulphoxides and phosphine oxides and related derivatives fit the empirical equation 18, where the standard deviation is y = 0.983. Several averaged scales are shown in Table 1588. 

Sulfonic esters are most frequently prepared by treatment of the corresponding halides with alcohols in the presence of a base. The method is much used for the conversion of alcohols to tosylates, brosylates, and similar sulfonic esters. Both R and R may be alkyl or aryl. The base is often pyridine, which functions as a nucleophilic catalyst, as in the similar alcoholysis of carboxylic acyl halides (10-21). Primary alcohols react the most rapidly, and it is often possible to sulfonate selectively a primary OH group in a molecule that also contains secondary or tertiary OH groups. The reaction with sulfonamides has been much less frequently used and is limited to N,N-disubstituted sulfonamides that is, R" may not be hydrogen. However, within these limits it is a useful reaction. The nucleophile in this case is actually R 0 . However, R" may be hydrogen (as well as alkyl) if the nucleophile is a phenol, so that the product is RS020Ar. Acidic catalysts are used in this case. Sulfonic acids have been converted directly to sulfonates by treatment with triethyl or trimethyl orthoformate HC(OR)3, without catalyst or solvent and with a trialkyl phosphite P(OR)3. ... 

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