Deprotonation Claisen condensation

The Claisen condensation is initiated by deprotonation of an ester molecule by sodium ethanolate to give a carbanion that is stabilized, mostly by resonance, as an enolate. This carbanion makes a nucleophilic attack at the partially positively charged carbon atom of the e.ster group, leading to the formation of a C-C bond and the elimination ofan ethanolate ion, This Claisen condensation only proceeds in strongly basic conditions with a pH of about 14. 

Unless the p keto ester can form a stable anion by deprotonation as m step 4 of Figure 21 1 the Claisen condensation product is present m only trace amounts at equi librium Ethyl 2 methylpropanoate for example does not give any of its condensation product under the customary conditions of the Claisen condensation... 

The Claisen condensation of t-butyl acetate with a methyl ester is a general route for the preparation of complex P-ketoesters.4 The reaction requires an excess of the enolate of t-butyl acetate to rapidly deprotonate the product and prevent tertiary alcohol formation. Some workers have also used excess LDA or t-butoxide for this purpose. 

A Claisen condensation is the acylation of an ester enolate by the corresponding ester. By deprotonating an ester with MOR, only a small concentration of the ester enolate is generated and this enolate is in equilibrium with the ester (cf. Table 13.1). The mechanism of the Claisen condensation is illustrated in detail in Figure 13.57 for the example of the condensation of ethyl butyrate. Both the deprotonation of the ester to give enolate A and the subsequent acylation of the latter are reversible. This acylation occurs via a tetrahedral intermediate (B in Figure 13.57) just like the acylations of other nucleophiles (Chapter 6). The equilibrium between two molecules of ethyl butyrate and one molecule each of the condensation product C and ethanol does not lie completely on the side of the products. In fact, Claisen condensations go to completion only... 

Fig. 13.57. Mechanism of a Claisen condensation. The deprotonation step Na 0Et + C -> D + EtOH is irreversible, and it is for this reason that eventually all the starting material will be converted into the enolate D.

What is the effect of the stoichiometric amount of strong base that allows the Claisen condensation to proceed to completion The /3-ketoester C, which occurs in the equilibrium, is an active-methylene compound and rather C,H-acidic. Therefore, its reaction with the alkoxide to form the ester-substituted enolate D occurs with considerable driving force. This driving force is strong enough to render the deprotonation step C —> D essentially irreversible. Consequently, the overall condensation also becomes irreversible. In this way, all the substrate is eventually converted into enolate D. The neutral /3-ketoester can be isolated after addition of one equivalent of aqueous acid during workup. 

The jS-keto ester products of Claisen condensations are more acidic than simple ketones, aldehydes, and esters because deprotonation gives an enolate whose negative charge is delocalized over both carbonyl groups. jS-Keto esters have pA values around 11, showing they are stronger acids than water. In strong base such as ethoxide ion or hydroxide ion, the /3-keto ester is rapidly and completely deprotonated. 

Deprotonation of the /3-keto ester provides a driving force for the Claisen condensation. The deprotonation is strongly exothermic, making the overall reaction exothermic and driving the reaction to completion. Because the base is consumed in the deprotonation step, a full equivalent of base must be used, and the Claisen condensation is said to be base-promoted rather than base-catalyzed. After the reaction is complete, addition of dilute acid converts the enolate back to the /3-keto ester. 

Crossed Claisen condensations between ketones and esters are also possible. Ketones are more acidic than esters, and the ketone component is more likely to deprotonate and serve as the enolate component in the condensation. The ketone enolate attacks the ester, which undergoes nucleophilic acyl substitution and thereby acylates the ketone. 

The low-energy tandem mass spectra of the deprotonated molecular ions of acylglycerol contain a type of ion whose formal mass-based composition corresponds to a ketone obtained by the combination of two fatty acid chains with a carbonyl group, minus a proton. The ketone contains mainly the chains of the central fatty acid combined with one of the two external fatty acids, even if the ketone containing the two external fatty acids is present with a much weaker intensity. The formation of these ions may be explained by an internal Claisen condensation followed by a fragmentation induced by a nucleophile substitution and then by a decarboxylation, as shown in Figure 8.64. 

Deprotonation of an ester led to a Claisen condensation, giving a bis-anisylketo ester intermediate [24]. Acidification and thermal decarboxylation led to the desired bis-anisylketone [Eq. (17)]. This product was an intermediate to a bicyclo[3.2.1]octadiene derivative used in a study of anionic homoaromaticity. 

In the Claisen condensation, a nucleophilic ester enolate donor is added to the carbonyl group of a second ester molecule. Loss of alkoxide from the resultant intermediate — the tetrahedral adduct — forms a P-keto ester, which is much more acidic than the starting ester. Hence, deprotonation of the initial product by alkoxide drives the overall reaction to completion and protects the P-keto ester from further carbonyl addition reactions. Thus, the starting ester must have at least two a-hydrogens. 

The intramolecular condensation of ester enolates provides efficient access to 5- and 6-member ring P-keto esters. Similar to the Claisen condensation, the Dieckmann condensation is driven to completion by deprotonation of the initially formed P-keto ester. Thus, at least one of the ester groups must have two a-hydrogens for the reaction to proceed. 

Claisen condensation example (source is deprotonated sink), details in Section 10.7.2 ... 

The overall reaction has been a deprotonation to produce the nucleophile for an addition-elimination reaction that is followed by a deprotonation to yield a resonance stabilized anion (Fig. 10.12). The reaction path is shown vertically on the left, and the side routes are shown to the right. This reaction is known as the Claisen condensation. 

There are two reasons why this reaction gives a poor yield. The nucleophilic carbon in the enolate is 3° and attack is hindered. More important, the final product has no hydrogen on the a-carbon, so the deprotonation by base which is the driving force in other Claisen condensations cannot occur here. What is produced is an equilibrium mixture of product and starting materials the conversion to product is low. 

AcetoacetylCoA thiolase (E.C. 2.3.1.9), acetoacetylCoA reductase (E.C. 1.1.1.36), and polyhydroxybutyrate synthetase12471 are the enzymes involved in polyester synthesis. AcetoacetylCoA thiolase catalyzes the head-to-tail Claisen condensation of two acetylCoA molecules. In this reaction, the active site cysteine attacks acetylCoA to form a thioester enzyme intermediate, which then reacts with the enolate derived from enzymatic deprotonation of the other acetylCoA. Mechanistic studies have been performed on this enzyme from Zooglea ramigera, which has been cloned and overexpressed12471. It has been established that the thiolase will form acyl enzyme intermediates with a number of acylCoA substrates, but will only accept acetylCoA as the nucleophile. After subsequent reduction, this results in all polymer units possessing a P-hydroxy group. These polymers are also useful sources of (R)-P-hydroxy acids[2481. 

Ester enolates are less reactive than aldehyde enolates but rapid and quantitative deprotonation is still necessary because of the possibility of Claisen condensation side reactions. 

One of these important bases, diisopropylaminomagnesium bromide, was first introduced by Frostick and Hauser in 1949 as a catalyst for the Claisen condensation. However, the most generally useful base has turned out to be lithium diisopropylamide (LDA), which was first used by Hamell and Levine for the same purpose in 1950 (equation 3). After the introduction of LDA, it was more than 10 years before it was used by Wittig for the stoichiometric deprotonation of aldimines in what has come to be known as the Wittig directed aldol condensation.In a seminal paper in 1970, Rathke reported that the lithium enolate of ethyl acetate is formed by reaction of the ester with lithium hexamethyldisilazane in THF. - Rathke found that THF solutions of the lithium enolate are stable indefinitely at -78 °C, and that the enolate reacts smoothly with aldehydes and ketones to give p-hydroxy esters (equation 4). 

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