Conjugate addition, of alcohols

Cross-conjugated dienones are quite inert to nucleophilic reactions at C-3, and the susceptibility of these systems to dienone-phenol rearrangement precludes the use of strong acid conditions. In spite of previous statements, A " -3-ketones do not form ketals, thioketals or enamines, and therefore no convenient protecting groups are available for this chromophore. Enol ethers are not formed by the orthoformate procedure, but preparation of A -trienol ethers from A -3-ketones has been claimed. Another route to A -trien-3-ol ethers involves conjugate addition of alcohol, enol etherification and then alcohol removal from la-alkoxy compounds. 

Enones have also served as latent enols in the hydroalkoxylation process. For example, an Au(m) catalyst has been used to effect the conjugate addition of alcohols (or other nucleophiles) to a,/ -unsaturated ketones, thereby triggering a hydroalkoxylation pathway of the resulting enol to furnish furans as products. (Equation (98)). 

A concluding example illustrates an interesting reaction whose outcome is analogous to the Ferrier rearrangement but involves a conjugate addition of alcohols to... 

Scheme 29 Conjugate addition of alcohols to a, 3-unsaturated aldehydes...

Conjugate addition of alcohols can be catalysed by acid or base... 

Acid catalysts promote conjugate addition of alcohols to a, p unsaturated carbonyl compounds by protonating the carbonyl group and making the conjugated system more electrophilic. Methanol adds to this ketone exceptionally well, for example, in the presence of an acid catalyst known as Dowex 50 . This is an acidic resin—just about as acidic as sulfuric acid in fact, but completely insoluble, and therefore very easy to remove from the product at the end of the reaction by filtration. 

As fas as reaction conditions are concerned, two main approaches are usually taken. Either the nucleophilicity of the R5OH to be added is further enhanced by addition of base (normally R50 M +, or nitrogen bases of low nucleophilicity), i.e., base catalysis, or the electrophilicity of the accepting double bond is further increased by adding, e.g., mercuric salts (alkoxymercu-ration), or sources of halonium ions (formation of / -halohydrins). Clearly, the latter protocol, from now on abbreviated as "onium-methods , necessitates a subsequent step for the removal of the auxiliary electrophile, e.g., reductive demercuration of an intermediate /i-alkoxymercu-rial. Whereas base catalysis has successfully been employed with all varieties of acceptors, application of onium-methods thus far appears to be restricted to a,/ -unsaturated carbonyl compounds. Interestingly, conjugate addition of alcohols to a,/l-enones could also be effected photochemically in a couple of cases. 

Mechanistically, two scenarios have been advanced. The first involves coordination of the nitrile to the Ru center which is followed by nucleophilic attack at the nitrile, while the second entails a sequence of events starting with oxidative addition of water, an alcohol or an amine to the metal center, followed by insertion of the nitrile into the Ru-OH bond. A recent report describes the conjugate addition of alcohols to acrylonitrile compounds catalyzed by a mthenium-acetamido complex [Ru(PCy3)2(CO)(CH3CONH)-(i-PrOH)H] (7) (Scheme 10.13) [17]. The mechanistic investigation of this reaction supports the proposal that the N-coordination of acrylo-... 

Conjugate addition of alcohols to conjugated esters, using ceric ammonium nitrate and LiBr, gave the corresponding a-bromo-p-alkoxy ester. ... 

The use of these materials in a range of reactions [isomerization of alkenes and alkynes, C—C bond formation, aldol condensation, Knoevenagel condensation, nitroaldol reactions, Michael addition, conjugate addition of alcohols, nucleophilic addition of phenylacetylene, nucleophilic ring opening of epoxides, oxidation reactions, Si—C bond formation, Pudovik reaction (P—C bond formation) and synthesis ofheterocycles] have been discussed in detail by Ono [248], as well as in the other cited reviews. We will thus discuss here only selected examples. 

Figure 17. Conjugate additions of alcohol to acrylonitrile (a) and 3-butcn-2-unc (b).

Michael/Henry/dehydration/aromatisation reaction of 2-(2-oxoethyl) benzal-dehydes and nitroalkenes mediated by pyrrolidine to obtain polysubstituted naphthalene derivatives. DBU catalysed the conjugate additions of alcohols to ot,p-unsaturated nitriles, esters and ketones. Perhaps more important are the aza-Michael addition reactions of amines to a,p-unsaturated ketones, nitriles and esters. Recently, Costa, Vilarrasa and coworkers described the addition of lactams, imides, 2-pyridone, pyrimidine-2,4-diones and inosines to methyl propiolate and other similar compounds, DABCO and DMAP being the best catalysts. As mentioned before, tertiary amines give zwitterionic species with activated allynes. It was as early as 1932 when Diels and Alder used the reaction of pyridine with dimethyl acetylenedicarbojylate (DMAD) for the synthesis of heterocycles. The interception of the corresponding intermediate with Al-tosylimines and activated olefins provided access to l-azadienes ° and highly substituted butadienes (Scheme 2.6). When the quenching species of the zwitterionic intermediate is a 1,2-diketone, dibenzoyl maleates or cyclopentenedione derivatives could be obtained (Scheme 2.6). The interception of the zwitterionic species of N-methyl imidazole (NMI) and DMAD with ketenes to obtain unsaturated esters has also been shown. ... 

NHC have been reported to catalyze conjugate additions of alcohols to enones E. M. Phillips, M. Riedrich, K. A. Scheidt,... 

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 13179-13181. N-heterocyclic carbene-catalyzed conjugate additions of alcohols. 

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