Crown ethers, cyclic

Naito et al.si have reported that the addition of oxirane derivatives to C02 is catalyzed by potassium carboxylates or carbonates in the presence of a crown ether cyclic carbonates (42) constitute the main product. 

It is known that the solubility of metal salts in nonpolar media is drastically increased if small amounts of crown ethers (cyclic polyethers) are used as complexation agents. Such a concept has been demonstrated in various areas of chemistry. For example, they are used as phase-transfer catalysts in organic synthesis. Moreover, Cheng27 and Schue28 have expanded this idea in the areas of anionic polymerization. 

Bacteriorhodopsin Photosynthetic light receptor of salt-loving bacteria Crown ether Cyclic polyethers whose oxygen atoms can jointly bind a metal ion situated in the centre of the ring. 

The strength of this bonding depends on the kind of ether Simple ethers form relatively weak complexes with metal ions but Charles J Pedersen of Du Pont discovered that cer tain polyethers form much more stable complexes with metal ions than do simple ethers Pedersen prepared a series of macrocyclic polyethers cyclic compounds contain mg four or more oxygens m a ring of 12 or more atoms He called these compounds crown ethers, because their molecular models resemble crowns Systematic nomencla ture of crown ethers is somewhat cumbersome and so Pedersen devised a shorthand description whereby the word crown is preceded by the total number of atoms m the ring and is followed by the number of oxygen atoms... 

Since 1950 a number of polyether antibiotics have been discovered using fermentation technol ogy They are characterized by the presence of sev eral cyclic ether structural units as illustrated for the case of monensm in Figure 16 3a Monensin and other naturally occurring polyethers are similar to crown ethers in their ability to form stable complexes... 

Ethers form Lewis acid Lewis base complexes with metal ions Certain cyclic polyethers called crown ethers, are particularly effective m coor dinatmg with Na" and K" and salts of these cations can be dissolved m nonpolar solvents when crown ethers are present Under these conditions the rates of many reactions that involve anions are accelerated... 

Critical micelle concentration (Section 19 5) Concentration above which substances such as salts of fatty acids aggre gate to form micelles in aqueous solution Crown ether (Section 16 4) A cyclic polyether that via lon-dipole attractive forces forms stable complexes with metal 10ns Such complexes along with their accompany mg anion are soluble in nonpolar solvents C terminus (Section 27 7) The amino acid at the end of a pep tide or protein chain that has its carboxyl group intact—that IS in which the carboxyl group is not part of a peptide bond Cumulated diene (Section 10 5) Diene of the type C=C=C in which a single carbon atom participates in double bonds with two others... 

It was noted early by Smid and his coworkers that open-chained polyethylene glycol type compounds bind alkali metals much as the crowns do, but with considerably lower binding constants. This suggested that such materials could be substituted for crown ethers in phase transfer catalytic reactions where a larger amount of the more economical material could effect the transformation just as effectively as more expensive cyclic ethers. Knbchel and coworkers demonstrated the application of open-chained crown ether equivalents in 1975 . Recently, a number of applications have been published in which simple polyethylene glycols are substituted for crowns . These include nucleophilic substitution reactions, as well as solubilization of arenediazonium cations . Glymes have also been bound into polymer backbones for use as catalysts " " . 

In specific applications to phase transfer catalysis, Knbchel and his coworkers compared crown ethers, aminopolyethers, cryptands, octopus molecules ( krakenmole-kiile , see below) and open-chained polyether compounds. They determined yields per unit time for reactions such as that between potassium acetate and benzyl chloride in acetonitrile solution. As expected, the open-chained polyethers were inferior to their cyclic counterparts, although a surprising finding was that certain aminopolyethers were superior to the corresponding crowns. 

Crown ether (Section 16.4) A cyclic polyether that, via ion-dipole attractive forces, forms stable complexes with metal ions. Such complexes, along with their accompanying anion, are soluble in nonpolar solvents. 

Crown ethers are cyclic polyethers. Larger crown ethers contain a cavity that can partially engulf atomic ions. 18-crown-6 actually binds so tightly that it can extract this ion into benzene from water, driving counterions, like MnOc, into the benzene layer, i.e. 

Cyclic low molecular weight compounds. Chiral separations using chiral crown ethers immobilized on silica or porous polymer resins were first reported in the... 

Inspired by the separation ability of cyclic selectors such as cyclodextrins and crown ethers, Malouk s group studied the synthesis of chiral cyclophanes and their intercalation by cation exchange into a lamellar solid acid, a-zirconium phosphate aiming at the preparation of separation media based on solid inorganic-organic conjugates for simple single-plate batch enantioseparations [77-80]. 

Some cyclic substituents, like crown ethers, are bound at two positions of the isoindolinediimine. The products are 2 3,9 10,16 17,23 24-tetrabridged phthalocyanines. 

Some other types of macrocycle compounds have been synthesized using adamantane and its derivatives. Recently, a new class of cyclobisamides has been synthesized using adamantane derivatives, which shows the general profiles of amino acid (serine or cystine)-ether composites. They were shown to be efficient ion transporters (especially for Na+ ions) in the model membranes [159]. Another interesting family of compounds to which adamantane derivatives have been introduced in order to obtain cyclic frameworks is crown ethers [160]. The outstanding feature of these adamantane-bearing crown ethers (which are also called diamond crowns ) is that ot-amino acids can be incorporated into the adamantano-crown backbone [160]. This family of... 

There are two other approaches to enhancing reactivity in nucleophilic substitutions by exploiting solvation effects on reactivity the use of crown ethers as catalysts and the utilization of phase transfer conditions. The crown ethers are a family of cyclic polyethers, three examples of which are shown below. 

The best known groups of the cyclic compounds concerned are the depsipep-tides (e.g., valinomycin), the macrotetrolides (e.g., nonactin and monactin) and the synthetic polyethers (crown ethers) they are used at concentrations of 10 4-10 7 M, e.g., in decane. Valinomycin membranes show a K+ selectivity of... 

---