Electron-withdrawal catalysts

Use of the Electron-Withdrawal Catalyst (benzoin reaction). The specificity of the basic cyanide ion used as a catalyst in the formation of benzoin has been considered puzzling, and apparently no adequate explanation has yet been suggested. Hydrogen cyanide, mercuric cyanide, and sodium hydroxide have no effect on the rate of benzoin formation, whereas sodium cyanide, potassium cyanide, and barium cyanide have a powerful catalytic effect. ... 

The kinds of vinyl monomers which undergo anionic polymerization are those with electron-withdrawing substituents such as the nitrile, carboxyl, and phenyl groups. We represent the catalysts as AB in this discussion these are substances which break into a cation (A ) and an anion (B ) under the conditions of the reaction. In anionic polymerization it is the basic anion which adds across the double bond of the monomer to form the active center for polymerization ... 

If olefins with electron-withdrawing substituents are involved, the addition can be conducted with a basic catalyst. 

Me3Si)2NH, Me3SiCl, Pyr, 20°, 5 min, 100% yield. ROH is a carbohydrate. Hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) is one of the most common sily-lating agents and readily silylates alcohols, acids, amines, thiols, phenols, hydroxamic acids, amides, thioamides, sulfonamides, phosphoric amides, phosphites, hydrazines, and enolizable ketones. It works best in the presence of a catalyst such as X-NH-Y, where at least one of the group X or Y is electron-withdrawing. ... 

Nitrones are a rather polarized 1,3-dipoles so that the transition structure of their cydoaddition reactions to alkenes activated by an electron-withdrawing substituent would involve some asynchronous nature with respect to the newly forming bonds, especially so in the Lewis acid-catalyzed reactions. Therefore, the transition structures for the catalyzed nitrone cydoaddition reactions were estimated on the basis of ab-initio calculations using the 3-21G basis set. A model reaction indudes the interaction between CH2=NH(0) and acrolein in the presence or absence of BH3 as an acid catalyst (Scheme 7.30). Both the catalyzed and uncatalyzed reactions have only one transition state in each case, indicating that the reactions are both concerted. However, the synchronous nature between the newly forming 01-C5 and C3-C4 bonds in the transition structure TS-J of the catalyzed reaction is rather different from that in the uncatalyzed reaction TS-K. For example, the bond lengths and bond orders in the uncatalyzed reaction are 1.93 A and 0.37 for the 01-C5 bond and 2.47 A and 0.19 for the C3-C4 bond, while those in... 

The cyanide ion plays an important role in this reaction, for it has three functions in addition to being a good nucleophile, its electron-withdrawing effect allows for the formation of the carbanion species by proton transfer, and it is a good leaving group. These features make the cyanide ion a specific catalyst for the benzoin condensation. 

Vinyl monomers with electron-withdrawing substituents (EWG) can be polymerized by basic (anionic) catalysts. The chain-carrying step is conjugate nucleophilic addition of an anion to the unsaturated monomer (Section 19.13). 

Epoxides bearing electron-withdrawing groups have been most commonly synthesized by the Darzens reaction. The Darzens reaction involves the initial addition of an ct-halo enolate 40 to the carbonyl compound 41, followed by ring-closure of the alkoxide 42 (Scheme 1.17). Several approaches for inducing asymmetry into this reaction - the use of chiral auxiliaries, reagents, or catalysts - have emerged. 

A number of approaches have been tried for modified halo-de-diazoniations using l-aryl-3,3-dialkyltriazenes, which form diazonium ions in an acid-catalyzed hydrolysis (see Sec. 13.4). Treatment of such triazenes with trimethylsilyl halides in acetonitrile at 60 °C resulted in the rapid evolution of nitrogen and in the formation of aryl halides (Ku and Barrio, 1981) without an electron transfer reagent or another catalyst. Yields with silyl bromide and with silyl iodide were 60-95%. The authors explain the reaction as shown in (Scheme 10-30). The formation of the intermediate is indicated by higher yields if electron-withdrawing substituents (X = CN, COCH3) are present. In the opinion of the present author, it is likely that the dissociation of this intermediate is not a concerted reaction, but that the dissociation of the A-aryl bond to form an aryl cation is followed by the addition of the halide. The reaction is therefore mechanistically not related to the homolytic halo-de-diazoniations. 

Although there are several reports in the literature on boron-mediated amide formations, the boron reagents had to be used in stoichiometric amounts.1-4-5-6-7-8-9 Recently, Yamamoto et al. presented the first truly catalytic method allowing for a direct amide formation from free carboxylic acids and amines as the reaction partners.10-1112 Best results were obtained by using phenylboronic acids bearing electron withdrawing substituents in the meta- and/or para-positions such as 3,4,5-trifluorophenylboronic acid or 3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)boronic acid as the catalysts. 

In the absence of bromide ion the p-xylene undergoes rapid autoxidation to p-toluic acid but oxidation of the second methyl group is difficult, due to deactivation by the electron-withdrawing carboxyl group, and proceeds only in low yield at elevated temperatures. Although bromide-free processes were subsequently developed (ref. 5) they require the use of much higher amounts of cobalt catalyst and have not achieved the same importance as the Amoco-MC process. Indeed, the... 

Alkenes activated by an electron-withdrawing group (Z may be C=C, halogen, C=0, Ar, CN, etc.) can be arylated by treatment with a diazonium salt and a cupric chloride catalyst. This is called the Meerwein arylation reaction Addition of... 

N-Hydroxypyrazoles are of interest as acylation and phosphorylation catalysts. Pyrazoles with strongly electron withdrawing groups (pKa < 9) 32 can be oxidized under buffered KHSO5 conditions to provide hydroxypyrazoles 33 in fair to good yields <96MC139>. 

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