Covalent catalysis, cyclodextrins

Alkaline hydrolysis rates of a series of thiophenyl 4-X-benzoates (47 X = H, Me, N02) was significantly enhanced in the presence of cyclodextrins (CDs), and this was attributed to strong binding of the benzoyl moiety within the CD cavity and covalent catalysis by secondary hydroxy groups of the CDs (48).63 The effect of MeCN and MeOH on the alkaline hydrolysis of acetylsalicylic acid in aqueous micellar solutions was reported.64 Butylaminolysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate in chlorobenzene in the presence of different kinds of phase-transfer catalysts (crown ethers and gly-mes) supported the existence of a novel reaction pathway exhibiting a first-order dependence on the concentration of the phase-transfer catalyst and a second-order... 

Scheme 6-20 Coordinated template catalyst 47 and cofactor analogues attached covalently to cyclodextrins in biomimetic catalysis.

General base catalysis involves enhancement of the nucleophilicity of the water molecule by the abstraction of a proton. In the cyclodextrin case, general base catalysis was found for the first time in the hydrolysis of trifluoroethyl ester of p-nitrobenzoate [13], since no expected covalent intermediate is formed in the course of the reaction and since there is a 1,7-fold DjO effect. 

Cyclodextrins exhibit remarkable ortho-para selectivity in the chlorination of aromatic compounds by hypochlorous acid (HOCl) [22] (Scheme 5). Chlorination takes place via formation of a covalent intermediate, a hypochlorite ester of cyclodextrin. In the chlorination of anisole by hypochlorous acid, pura-chlorination occurs almost exclusively in the presence of sufficient cyclodextrin, although in control experiments maltose had no effect on the product ratio. For example, selectivity for para-chlorination in the presence of 9.4 X 10 M a-cyclodextrin is 96%, which is much larger than that in the absence of a-cyclodextrin (60%). In the proposed mechanism, one of the secondary hydroxyl groups reacts with HOCl to form a hypochlorite ester, which attacks the sterically favorable para position of the anisole molecule included in the cyclodextrin cavity in an intracomplex reaction. The participation of one of the secondary hydroxyl groups at the C-3 position in the catalysis was shown by the fact that dodecamethyl-a-cyclodextrin, in which all the primary hydroxyl groups and all the secondary hydroxyl groups at the C-2 positions are methylated, exhibited equal or larger ortho-para specificity than native a-cyclo-... 

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