Tertiary diamine organolithium complexes

Synthetic Aspects of Tertiary Diamine Organolithium Complexes... 

Reactivity of Various Tertiary Diamines in the Preparation of Tertiary Diamine Organolithium Complexes by Metalation. Previous work has shown that the reactivity and the rate of metalation for Reaction 2 of the tertiary diamine organolithium complexes is a function of the tertiary diamine in the complex (1,9). In the specific case of the metala-... 

Work with TED (triethylenedimaine) showed that reasonable metalation rates were obtained only at ratios of 1 1 in benzene. The reaction required 2.5 hours in refluxing benzene for completion. The bright yellow, crystalline product had a modest solubility in benzene and precipitated from solution. The solid complex may be pyrophoric in large amounts. The solubilities of various organolithium-tertiary diamine complexes are listed in Table II. 

Table II. Solubility of Organolithium—Tertiary Diamine Complexes...

It might be expected that in the presence of TMEDA or other tertiary diamines anomalous reaction products might be obtained with organolithium compounds such as benzyllithium. A number of reports in the literature disclose instances of the expected reaction products from reactions such as carbonation to the carboxylic acid and addition to benzophenone (I, 3, 4, 12). The phenyllithium-TMEDA (1 1) complex in benzene was allowed to react with benzophenone to give a 95% yield of triphenylcarbinol and with cyclohexanone to yield 59% of the 1-phenylcyclohexanol. The reaction with excess trimethylsilyl chloride is apparently quantitative. The main consideration in using these complexes is to use low temperatures for reaction and aqueous washes of ammonium chloride solution in the work-up to remove all of the tertiary diamine (the odor can be detected in low concentrations.)... 

The reactivity of the organolithium compounds is increased by adding molecules capable of solvating the lithium cations. Tetramethylenediamine (TMEDA) is commonly used for organolithium reagents. This tertiary diamine can chelate lithium. The resulting complexes generally are able to effect deprotonation at accelerated rates.In the case of phenyllithium, NMR studies show that the compound is tetrameric in 1 2 ether-cyclohexane, but dimeric in 1 9 TMEDA-cyclohexane. ... 

Among unsolvated organolithium compounds only the alkyllithiums are soluble in noncoordinating solvents such as alkanes and arenes. Their states of aggregation depend on the structure close to lithium. Thus primary, tertiary and secondary alkyllithiums, all unsolvated, assemble into respectively hexamers, tetramers and equilibrium mixtures of hexamers and tetramers. Most organolithium compounds dissolve in and coordinate with donor compounds such as ethers and tertiary amines. The actual structures depend critically on the nature of the donor. Thus, diethyl ether solvates tend to be mainly cubic tetramers (with some dimers) while THF favors mixtures of monomers and dimers. Tertiary vicinal diamines such as TMEDA and 1,2-di-Af-piperidinoethane, DPE, favor bidentated coordinated dimers. Finally, in the presence of triamines such as pentamethyl-triethylenediamine PMDTA and l,4,7-trimethyl-l,4,7-triazacyclononane TMTAN, many organolithium compounds form tridentately complexed monomers. 

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