Cesium Salts in Crown Synthesis

15 Cesium Salts in Crown Synthesis 3.14 Organometallic Derivatives of Crowns 

Bell and Hall have incorporated an organometallic unit into a crown by using the ferrocenyl unit as part of the ring or as a third strand. The unit is incorporated either as the 1,1 -diformylferrocene or the corresponding acid. In the former case, the bis-imine is prepared and reduced to give the saturated crown (see structure 24). In the latter case, the acid is converted into its corresponding chloride and thence into the diamide by reaction with a diamine. Diborane reduction affords the saturated amino-crown. Structure 24 could be prepared by either of these methods but the dialdehyde approach was reported to be poor compared to the amide approach which afforded the product in ca. 60% yield . 

Using cesium carbonate in methanol, Kellogg and coworkers were able to convert catechol and pentaethylene glycol into benzo-18-crown-6 in 74% yield. They found that the cesium salts in these reactions were usually equal or superior to the potassium salts. 

Further, they said In these reactions, the yields of the products increase with the increase in the ring size, although this has not been established as a general rule .  

The most demanding test of cesium carbonate as base was with 2,3-dihydroxypyridine (3-hydroxypyridone). The cesium salt was found to be fairly unstable, apparently oxidizing quite rapidly. Model reactions suggested that alkylation would occur 1,3 (N, 0) to give the substituted pyridone. Nevertheless, on the basis of UV and H-nmr analysis, the product of reaction between 2,3-dihydroxypyridine and tetraethylene glycol dibromide was assigned as the pyridocrown (23% yield, mp 77—78.5°) as shown in Eq. (3.60). 

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