Water Diels-Alder reactions

Keywords Diels-Alder reactions, water, Lewis acids... 

S. Otto, G. Boccaletti, J. B. F. N. Engberts, A Chiral Lewis-Acid-Catalyzed Diels-Alder Reaction. Water-Enhanced Enantioselectivity J. Am. Chem. Soc 1998, 120, 4238-4239. 

This chapter introduces the experimental work described in the following chapters. Some mechanistic aspects of the Diels-Alder reaction and Lewis-acid catalysis thereof are discussed. This chapter presents a critical survey of the literature on solvent ejfects on Diels-Alder reactions, with particular emphasis on the intriguing properties of water in connection with their effect on rate and selectivity. Similarly, the ejfects of water on Lewis acid - Lewis base interactions are discussed. Finally the aims of this thesis are outlined. 

This thesis contributes to the knowledge of catalysis in water, us it describes an explorative journey in the, at the start of the research, unh odded field of catalysis of Diels-Alder reactions in aqueous media. The discussion will touch on organic chemistry, coordination chemistry and colloid chemistry, largely depending upon the physical-organic approach of structural variation for the elucidation of the underlying mechanisms and principles of the observed phenomena. 

The remainder of this chapter will provide the necessary background, from which the incentive of catalysing Diels-Alder reactions in water and the aims of the study will become apparent. 

Studies by the group directed by Mayoral have been limited to Diels-Alder reactions of type A. When water was not included, the rate constants correlate with the solvent hydrogen-bond-donating capacity Upon inclusion of water the solvophobidty parameter, Sp, contributed significantly in... 

In summary, solvents can influence Diels-Alder reactions through a multitude of different interactions, of which the contributions to fire overall rate uniquely depend on the particular solvent-diene-dienophile combination. Scientists usually feel uncomfortable about such a situation and try to extract generalities. When limited to the most extensively studied type A Diels-Alder reactions this approach seems feasible. These Diels-Alder reactions are dominated by hydrogen bonding interactions in combination with solvophobic interactions. This observation predicts a very special role of water as a solvent for type A Diels-Alder reactions, which is described in Section 1.4. 

Special effects of water on Diels-Alder reactions... 

For a long time water was not a popular solvent for the Diels-Alder reaction. Before 1980 its use had been reported only incidentally. Diels and Alder themselves performed the reaction between... 

The extreme influence water can exert on the Diels-Alder reaction was rediscovered by Breslow in 1980, much by coincidence . Whale studying the effect of p-cyclodextrin on the rate of a Diels-Alder reaction in water, accidentally, the addition of the cyclodextrin was omitted, but still rate constants were observed that were one to two orders of magnitude larger than those obtained in organic solvents. The investigations that followed this remarkable observation showed that the acceleration of Diels-Alder reactions by water is a general phenomenon. Table 1.2 contains a selection from the multitude of Diels-Alder reactions in aqueous media that have been studied Note that the rate enhancements induced by water can amount up to a factor 12,800 compared to organic solvents (entry 1 in Table 1.2). 

Breslow immediately grasped the significance of his observation. He interpreted this discovery in terms of a hydrophobic effect Since in the Diels-Alder reaction. .. the transition state. .. brings together two nonpolar groups, one might expect that in water this reaction could be accelerated by hydrophobic interactions ". ... 

Breslow supported this suggestion by demonstrating that the cycloaddition can be further accelerated by adding anti cliaotropic salts such as lithium chloride, whereas chaotropic salts such as guanidium chloride led to a retardation " "" ". On the basis of these experiments Breslow excluded all other possible explanations for the special effect of water on the Diels-Alder reaction " . 

Alternatively, authors have repeatedly invoked the internal pressure of water as an explanation of the rate enhancements of Diels-Alder reactions in this solvent ". They were probably inspired by the well known large effects of the external pressure " on rates of cycloadditions. However, the internal pressure of water is very low and offers no valid explanation for its effect on the Diels-Alder reaction. The internal pressure is defined as the energy required to bring about an infinitesimal change in the volume of the solvents at constant temperature pi = (r)E / Due to the open and... 

Table 1.2. Relative rate constants of some selected Diels-Alder reactions in water compared to organic solvents of different hydrogen bond donor capacities.

Tire importance of hydrophobic interactions in the aqueous acceleration is further demonstrated by a qualitative study described by Jenner on the effect of pressure on Diels-Alder reactions in water and a number of organic solvents. Invariably, the reactions in water were less accelerated by pressure than those in organic solvents, which is in line with the notion that pressure diminishes hydrophobic interactions. 

Figure 1.5. Chemical potential of the initial state, the transition state and the product of the Diels-Alder reaction between methyl vinyl ketone and cyclopentadiene in water as compared to 1-propanol The data are taken from r. 56.

Three years after the Breslow report on the large effects of water on the rate of the Diels-Alder reaction, he also demonstrated tliat the endo-exo selectivity of this reaction benefits markedly from employing aqueous media . Based on the influence of salting-in and saltirg-out agents, Breslow pinpoints hydrophobic effects as the most important contributor to the enhanced endo-exo... 

Breslow studied the dimerisation of cyclopentadiene and the reaction between substituted maleimides and 9-(hydroxymethyl)anthracene in alcohol-water mixtures. He successfully correlated the rate constant with the solubility of the starting materials for each Diels-Alder reaction. From these relations he estimated the change in solvent accessible surface between initial state and activated complex " . Again, Breslow completely neglects hydrogen bonding interactions, but since he only studied alcohol-water mixtures, the enforced hydrophobic interactions will dominate the behaviour. Recently, also Diels-Alder reactions in dilute salt solutions in aqueous ethanol have been studied and minor rate increases have been observed Lubineau has demonstrated that addition of sugars can induce an extra acceleration of the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction . Also the effect of surfactants on Diels-Alder reactions has been studied. This topic will be extensively reviewed in Chapter 4. 

The effect of additives on the selectivity of the Diels-Alder reaction in water has not received much... 

A few years after the first articles of Breslow had appeared, Grieco elegantly demonstrated that the astonishing rate and selectivity enhancements of Diels-Alder reactions in water can be exploited sirccessfully in organic synthesis. He extensively studied the reactivity of dienes containing... 

The extensive work of Lubineau further demonstrated the merits of water with respect to the rates and selectivities of the Diels-Alder reaction. Since 1985 he has published a large number of articles dealirig mainly with dienes that were rendered water soluble through the temporary introduction of a... 

Recently the scalirg up of water-based Diels-Alder reactions has been studied. ... 

Apart from the thoroughly studied aqueous Diels-Alder reaction, a limited number of other transformations have been reported to benefit considerably from the use of water. These include the aldol condensation , the benzoin condensation , the Baylis-Hillman reaction (tertiary-amine catalysed coupling of aldehydes with acrylic acid derivatives) and pericyclic reactions like the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition and the Qaisen rearrangement (see below). These reactions have one thing in common a negative volume of activation. This observation has tempted many authors to propose hydrophobic effects as primary cause of ftie observed rate enhancements. 

Mechanistic investigations have focused on the two pericyclic reactions, probably as a consequence of the close mechanistic relation to the so successful aqueous Diels-Alder reaction. A kinetic inquest into the effect of water on several 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions has been performed by Steiner , van... 

In a Lewis-acid catalysed Diels-Alder reaction, the first step is coordination of the catalyst to a Lewis-basic site of the reactant. In a typical catalysed Diels-Alder reaction, the carbonyl oxygen of the dienophile coordinates to the Lewis acid. The most common solvents for these processes are inert apolar liquids such as dichloromethane or benzene. Protic solvents, and water in particular, are avoided because of their strong interactions wifti the catalyst and the reacting system. Interestingly, for other catalysed reactions such as hydroformylations the same solvents do not give problems. This paradox is a result of the difference in hardness of the reactants and the catalyst involved... 

The most effective Lewis-acid catalysts for the Diels-Alder reaction are hard cations. Not surprisingly, they coordinate to hard nuclei on the reacting system, typically oxygen atoms. Consequently, hard solvents are likely to affect these interactions significantly. Table 1.4 shows a selection of some solvents ranked according to their softness. Note that water is one of the hardest... 

In summary, water is clearly an extremely bad solvent for coordination of a hard Lewis acid to a hard Lewis base. Hence, catalysis of Diels-Alder reactions in water is expected to be difficult due to the relative inefficiency of the interactions between the Diels-Alder reactants and the Lewis-acid catalyst in this medium. 

A combination of the promoting effects of Lewis acids and water is a logical next step. However, to say the least, water has not been a very popular medium for Lewis-acid catalysed Diels-Alder reactions, which is not surprising since water molecules interact strongly with Lewis-acidic and the Lewis-basic atoms of the reacting system. In 1994, when the research described in this thesis was initiated, only one example of Lewis-acid catalysis of a Diels-Alder reaction in water was published Lubineau and co-workers employed lanthanide triflates as a catalyst for the Diels-Alder reaction of glyoxylate to a relatively unreactive diene . No comparison was made between the process in water and in organic solvents. 

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