1,1-Dicarboxylic acids, decarboxylation from malonic esters

A combination of two of the reactions discussed in this chapter—alkylation of an a-carbon and decarboxylation of a j8-dicarboxylic acid—can be used to prepare carboxylic acids of any desired chain length. The procedure is called the malonic ester synthesis because the starting material for the synthesis is the diethyl ester of malonic acid. The first two carbons of the carboxylic acid come from malonic ester, and the rest of the carboxylic acid comes from the alkyl halide used in the second step of the reaction. 

We saw in Section 18.1 that it is harder to remove a proton from an a-carbon if the electrons are delocalized onto the carbonyl group of an ester rather than onto the carbonyl group of a ketone. For the same reason, a higher temperature (-135 °C) is required to decarboxylate a j8-dicarboxylic acid such as malonic acid than to decarboxylate a j8-keto acid. 

There are two classical reaction sequences in organic chemistry that rely on enolate alkylation. One is the malonic ester synthesis.61 jjj synthetic example taken from the Clive and Hisaindee synthesis of brevioxime,62 diethyl malonate was treated with a base such as sodium ethoxide, under thermodynamic control conditions. The resulting enolate anion is treated with the indicated alkyl halide to give the alkylated product 81 (in 72% yield).Saponification of 81 to the dicarboxylic acid (82, in 99% yield), was followed by decarboxylation (sec. 2.9.D) and formation of the substituted acid 83, in 94% yield. ... 

Recall from Section 18.4C that hydrolysis of an ester in aqueous sodium hydroxide (saponification) followed by acidification of the reaction mixture with aqueous HCl converts an ester to a carboxylic acid. Also recall from Section 17.9 that j8-ketoacids and j8-dicarboxylic adds (substituted malonic acids) readily undergo decarboxylation (lose CO2) when heated. Both the Claisen and Dieckmann condensations yield esters of j8-ketoacids. The following equations illustrate the results of a Claisen condensation followed by hydrolysis of the ester, acidification, and decarboxylation. 

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