Electrophiles examples

Reviews which cover heterocyclization of unsaturated sulfur compounds have been published recently.16 Cyclizations of sulfur systems can also be effected by radical chain mechanisms or by reactions in which the sulfur acts as an electrophile. Examples of nucleophilic sulfur functional groups used in heterocyclization reactions are shown in Figure 3. ... 

Chapter 4 Reactions Involving Acids and Other Electrophiles Example 4.4. Protonation of a carbonyl group. 

The iodine-magnesium exchange of aryl iodides with "Bu3MgLi, which is prepared by mixing "BuMgBr and "BuLi in a 1 2 ratio in THF at O C, proceeds smoothly at 0°C or -78 °C within 0.5 h, and the resulting arylmagnesium species are trapped by electrophiles. Examples are shown in Tab. 3.12. 

Fluoroaziridinones have also been synthesized. The highly electrophilic example 161 was formed by the reaction of oxaziridine 160 with bis(trifluoromethyl)ketene. 

The electrophile ftat modifies a coordinated ligand can be a proton, a strong Lewis acid, or an unsaturated electrophile. Examples of Lewis acids include tiityl cahon or per-fluoroarylboranes, and examples of unsaturated electrophiles include CO, SO, isocyanates, aldehydes, ketones, and related compoimds. Reactions of these electrophiles can lead to the formation of catioruc metal complexes by abstraction of a hydride or hydrocarbyl group by the Lewis acid, or they can lead to products from insertion of the unsaturated electrophile into the metal-carbon bond. These reactions are sho-wn generically in Equations 12.1-12.3. 

The nitration, sulphonation and Friedel-Crafts acylation of aromatic compounds (e.g. benzene) are typical examples of electrophilic aromatic substitution. 

The reaction of trivalent carbocations with carbon monoxide giving acyl cations is the key step in the well-known and industrially used Koch-Haaf reaction of preparing branched carboxylic acids from al-kenes or alcohols. For example, in this way, isobutylene or tert-hutyi alcohol is converted into pivalic acid. In contrast, based on the superacidic activation of electrophiles leading the superelectrophiles (see Chapter 12), we found it possible to formylate isoalkanes to aldehydes, which subsequently rearrange to their corresponding branched ketones. 

Various other heteroatom-substituted earbocations were also found to be activated by superacids. a-Nitro and a-cyanocarbenium ions, R2C N02 or R2C CN, for example, undergo O- or N-protonation, respectively, to dicationic species, decreasing neighboring nitrogen participation, which greatly enhances the electrophilicity of their carbo-... 

The next example uses another carbon electrophile how can you use the relationship of the two functional groups in TM 249 to design a synthesis of the molecule ... 

There are ways to plot data with several pieces of data at each point in space. One example would be an isosurface of electron density that has been colorized to show the electrostatic potential value at each point on the surface (Figure 13.6). The shape of the surface shows one piece of information (i.e., the electron density), whereas the color indicates a different piece of data (i.e., the electrostatic potential). This example is often used to show the nucleophilic and electrophilic regions of a molecule. 

If, on the other hand, the encounter pair were an oriented structure, positional selectivity could be retained for a different reason and in a different quantitative sense. Thus, a monosubstituted benzene derivative in which the substituent was sufficiently powerfully activating would react with the electrophile to give three different encounter pairs two of these would more readily proceed to the substitution products than to the starting materials, whilst the third might more readily break up than go to products. In the limit the first two would be giving substitution at the encounter rate and, in the absence of steric effects, products in the statistical ratio whilst the third would not. If we consider particular cases, there is nothing in the rather inadequate data available to discourage the view that, for example, in the cases of toluene or phenol, which in sulphuric acid are nitrated at or near the encounter rate, the... 

The model adopted by Ri and Eyring is not now acceptable, but some of the more recent treatments of electrostatic effects are quite close to their method in principle. In dealing with polar substituents some authors have concentrated on the interaction of the substituent with the electrophile whilst others have considered the interaction of the substituent with the charge on the ring in the transition state. An example of the latter method was mentioned above ( 7.2.1), and both will be encountered later ( 9.1.2). They are really attempts to explain the nature of the inductive effect, and an important question which they raise is that of the relative importance of localisation and electrostatic phenomena in determining orientation and state of activation in electrophilic substitutions. 

The selectivity of an electrophile, measured by the extent to which it discriminated either between benzene and toluene, or between the meta- and ara-positions in toluene, was considered to be related to its reactivity. Thus, powerful electrophiles, of which the species operating in Friedel-Crafts alkylation reactions were considered to be examples, would be less able to distinguish between compounds and positions than a weakly electrophilic reagent. The ultimate electrophilic species would be entirely insensitive to the differences between compounds and positions, and would bring about reaction in the statistical ratio of the various sites for substitution available to it. The idea has gained wide acceptance that the electrophiles operative in reactions which have low selectivity factors Sf) or reaction constants (p+), are intrinsically more reactive than the effective electrophiles in reactions which have higher values of these parameters. However, there are several aspects of this supposed relationship which merit discussion. 

The selectivity relationship merely expresses the proportionality between intermolecular and intramolecular selectivities in electrophilic substitution, and it is not surprising that these quantities should be related. There are examples of related reactions in which connections between selectivity and reactivity have been demonstrated. For example, the ratio of the rates of reaction with the azide anion and water of the triphenylmethyl, diphenylmethyl and tert-butyl carbonium ions were 2-8x10 , 2-4x10 and 3-9 respectively the selectivities of the ions decrease as the reactivities increase. The existence, under very restricted and closely related conditions, of a relationship between reactivity and selectivity in the reactions mentioned above, does not permit the assumption that a similar relationship holds over the wide range of different electrophilic aromatic substitutions. In these substitution reactions a difficulty arises in defining the concept of reactivity it is not sufficient to assume that the reactivity of an electrophile is related... 

The electrophilicity of C = C double bonds conjugated with electron withdrawing groupings leads to a -synthons. This is an important example of the vinyiogous principle ... 

An example of an intermolecular aldol type condensation, which works only under acidic catalysis is the Knoevenagel condensation of a sterically hindered aldehyde group in a formyl-porphyrin with a malonic ester (J.-H. Fuhrhop, 1976). Self-condensations of the components do not occur, because the ester groups of malonic esters are not electrophilic enough, and because the porphyrin-carboxaldehyde cannot form enolates. 

The selective intermolecular addition of two different ketones or aldehydes can sometimes be achieved without protection of the enol, because different carbonyl compounds behave differently. For example, attempts to condense acetaldehyde with benzophenone fail. Only self-condensation of acetaldehyde is observed, because the carbonyl group of benzophenone is not sufficiently electrophilic. With acetone instead of benzophenone only fi-hydroxyketones are formed in good yield, if the aldehyde is slowly added to the basic ketone solution. Aldols are not produced. This result can be generalized in the following way aldehydes have more reactive carbonyl groups than ketones, but enolates from ketones have a more nucleophilic carbon atom than enolates from aldehydes (G. Wittig, 1968). 

A classical way to achieve regioselectivity in an (a -i- d -reaction is to start with a-carbanions of carboxylic acid derivatives and electrophilic ketones. Most successful are condensations with 1,3-dicarbonyl carbanions, e.g. with malonic acid derivatives, since they can be produced at low pH, where ketones do not enolize. Succinic acid derivatives can also be de-protonated and added to ketones (Stobbe condensation). In the first example given below a Dieckmann condensation on a nitrile follows a Stobbe condensation, and selectivity is dictated by the tricyclic educt neither the nitrile group nor the ketone is enolizable (W.S. Johnson, 1945, 1947). 

The pyridine-like nitrogen of the 2H-pyrrol-2-yiidene unit tends to withdraw electrons from the conjugated system and deactivates it in reactions with electrophiles. The add-catalyzed condensations described above for pyrroles and dipyrromethanes therefore do not occur with dipyrromethenes. Vilsmeier formylation, for example, is only successful with pyrroles and dipyrromethanes but not with dipyrromethenes. 

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