Electrophilic addition Lewis acids

C4 is nucleophilic (enol ether), and CIO is electrophilic. The Lewis acid makes CIO more electrophilic by coordinating to 013. After conjugate addition, 08 traps the C3 carbocation. Proton-Li+ exchange gives the product. 

In aromatic systems, the Lewis acids which activate via coordination are also capable of activating the aromatic system by the formation of a and ir complexes. There are a sufficient number of examples available to indicate that the activation via the latter processes is the more important of these, where all are present. Olivier (52) showed in 1913 that the kinetic behavior of such reactions consists of two portions. When the catalyst, say aluminum chloride, is present in less than the amount required to complex all the functional groups, the reaction is relatively slow and the catalytic activity is due to the small amount of Lewis acid resulting from the dissociation of the complex. As soon as all the functional groups are coordinated, any additional Lewis acid is found to accelerate the rate enormously. In these electrophilic substitutions it seems highly probable that the the activation involves the pi electron system of the benzene ring. Olivier studied the reaction sequence ... 

The PTOC protocol for the preparation of nitrogen centered radicals is also compatible with a variety of Lewis acids that apparently complex with the aminyl radicals to give reactive, electrophilic species. Lewis acids offer potentially milder reaction conditions than protic acids for sensitive compounds. Efficient intermolecular addition reactions have... 

Crotyl silanes offer the possibility of diastereoselectivity in reactions with aldehydes in the same way as the corresponding boranes. The mechanism is completely different because crotyl trialkylsilanes react via an open transition state as the silicon is not Lewis acidic enough to bind the carbonyl oxygen of the electrophile. Instead, the aldehyde has to be activated by an additional Lewis acid or by conversion into a reactive oxonium ion by one of the methods... 

Dithioacetals are useful in organic synthesis as protective groups for carbonyl compounds, as precursors of acyl carbanion equivalents or as electrophiles under Lewis acidic conditions. The DBSA-catalysed system was also found to be applicable to dithioacetal-ization in water. In addition, easy work-up has been realized without the use of organic solvents when the products are solid and insoluble in water. In fact, the dithioacetaliza-tion of cinnamaldehyde on 10 mmol-scale with 1 mol% of DBSA proceeded smoothly to deposit crystals. The pure product was obtained in excellent yield after the crystals were filtered and washed with water (Equation (8)). This simple procedure is one of the advantages of the present reaction system. 

Most organic free radicals are nucleophilic and will react with electrophilic centers. Lewis acids have been used to activate aj3-unsaturated carbonyl compounds towards addition of free radicals and also to stabilize a-keto radicals [67]. The first report of the use of a chiral Lewis acid to effect an asymmetric free-radical reaction was that of Urabe, Yamashita, Suzuki, Kobayashi, and Sato in 1995 [68]. They found that if the BINOL aluminum catalyst 313 is stoichiometrically complexed with lactone 323 and then treated with butyl iodide and tributylstannane in the presence of triethylborane the alkylated lactone 324 can be isolated in 47 % yield with 23 % ee (Sch. 40). 

Acceptor ability of a group can be enhanced by interaction with a suitable electrophile (proton, Lewis acid). This is very likely in the Ni(acac)2-catalysed reaction of cyclopropyl ketones with trimethylaluminium and in the synthetically more significant addition of several cuprates to alkyl cyclopropyl ketones. The BFs-activated organometallic reagent attacks the less substituted cyclopropane carbon regioselectively. Yet steric hindrance can be a problem in this reaction (equation 40) . 

Addition to Various Electrophiles. Various Lewis acids promote the addition of the reagent to an allylic acetate, following a carbon-Ferrier rearrangement pathway. Tita-nium(IV) chloride promotes the addition of the reagent to 2,2-dialkoxycyclopropanecarboxylic esters to give 3-alkoxy-2-cyclopentenones (eq 13). ... 

Later, the alkylation with various acetals was extended to titanium enolates derived from thiazolidinethiones by Urpi and coworkers, enabling to build up stereogenic centers not only in a- but also in P-carbonyl position [44]. It turned out that the presence of an additional Lewis acid like tin tetrachloride or boron trifluoride is necessary to activate the electrophile. When the protocol was applied to AT-propionyl auxiliary 80a, the products 82 that correspond to 0-protected aldol adducts are predominantly formed as anti-diastereomers. 

Although surface organometallic chemistry is still in its infancy, there are already several examples of surface reactions leading to well-defined surface complexes (Table l-I). It appears that these reactions obey the same principles as those encountered in molecular chemistry nucleophilic attack at the ligands, electrophilic attack of the metal-carbon bond, oxidative addition, Lewis acid-base adduct formation, redox reactions, disproportionation, and the cooperative effect of dual acid-base sites in an insertion reaction. 

Alkyl halides by themselves are insufficiently electrophilic to react with benzene Aluminum chloride serves as a Lewis acid catalyst to enhance the electrophihcity of the alkylating agent With tertiary and secondary alkyl halides the addition of aluminum chlonde leads to the formation of carbocations which then attack the aromatic ring... 

Electrophile (Section 4 8) A species (ion or compound) that can act as a Lewis acid or electron pair acceptor an elec tron seeker Carbocations are one type of electrophile Electrophilic addition (Section 6 4) Mechanism of addition in which the species that first attacks the multiple bond is an electrophile ( electron seeker )... 

Electrophilic Addition. In the following example, an a-olefin reacts with a Lewis acid to form the most stable intermediate carbocation. This species, in turn, reacts with the conjugate base to produce the final product. Thus electrophilic addition follows Markovnikov s rule. 

Electrophile Addition Reactions. The addition of electrophilic (acidic) reagents HZ to propylene involves two steps. The first is the slow transfer of the hydrogen ion (proton) from one base to another, ie, from Z to the propylene double bond, to form a carbocation. The second is a rapid combination of the carbocation with the base, Z . The electrophile is not necessarily limited to a Lowry-Briiinsted acid, which has a proton to transfer, but can be any electron-deficient molecule (Lewis acid). 

Detailed mechanistic studies by Fodor demonstrated the intermediacy of both imidoyl chlorides (6) and nitrilium salts (7) in Bischler-Napieralski reactions promoted by a variety of reagents such as PCI5, POCI3, and SOCh)/ For example, amide 1 reacts with POCI3 to afford imidoyl chloride 6. Upon heating, intermediate 6 is converted to nitrilium salt 7, which undergoes intramolecular electrophilic aromatic substitution to afford the dihydroisoquinoline 2. Fodor s studies showed that the imidoyl chloride and nitrilium salt intermediates could be generated under mild conditions and characterized spectroscopically. Fodor also found that the cyclization of the imidoyl chlorides is accelerated by the addition of Lewis acids (SnCU, ZnCh), which provides further evidence to support the intermediacy of nitrilium salts. ... 

The second group of reactions is called vicinal difunctionalization. They embrace the C2 and C3 positions of the furan ring simultaneously. Thus, complex 3 (X = O, R = R = R = H) reacts with benzaldehyde dimethyl acetal to give 4H-furanium cation (the product of electrophile addition at C4), which experiences further attack by the methoxide group with formation of the acetal 8 (950M2861). This reaction is possible in the presence of the Lewis acid (BF3—OEt2). Reaction with methyl vinyl ketone in methanol, when run in identical conditions. 

The initial step is the coordination of the alkyl halide 2 to the Lewis acid to give a complex 4. The polar complex 4 can react as electrophilic agent. In cases where the group R can form a stable carbenium ion, e.g. a tert-buiyX cation, this may then act as the electrophile instead. The extent of polarization or even cleavage of the R-X bond depends on the structure of R as well as the Lewis acid used. The addition of carbenium ion species to the aromatic reactant, e.g. benzene 1, leads to formation of a cr-complex, e.g. the cyclohexadienyl cation 6, from which the aromatic system is reconstituted by loss of a proton ... 

In reaction with an alkene, initially a three-membered ring Lewis acid/Lewis base-complex 5 is formed, where the carbon-carbon double bond donates r-electron density into the empty p-orbital of the boron center. This step resembles the formation of a bromonium ion in the electrophilic addition of bromine to an alkene ... 

Before beginning a detailed discussion of alkene reactions, let s review briefly some conclusions from the previous chapter. We said in Section 5.5 that alkenes behave as nucleophiles (Lewis bases) in polar reactions. The carbon-carbon double bond is electron-rich and can donate a pair of electrons to an electrophile (Lewis acid), for example, reaction of 2-methylpropene with HBr yields 2-bromo-2-methylpropane. A careful study of this and similar reactions by Christopher Ingold and others in the 1930s led to the generally accepted mechanism shown in Figure 6.7 for electrophilic addition reactions. 

Therefore, in order to obtain a 1,4-addition of an allyl residue to an enone, two activation modes can be used reactions take place either under electrophilic conditions with Lewis acid promotion, or in the presence of fluoride ions. This is important as the stereochemical outcome often depends on the activation mode selected. 

As discussed in Sections 5.1-5.3, arenediazonium ions are Lewis acids in which the (3-nitrogen forms the center of electrophilic character. This was demonstrated by the addition of hydroxide ions and water molecules. Other nucleophiles can also be added and, in principle, these reactions display the same mechanistic characteristics as those with OH and H20. According to the nature of the atom of the nucleophile that provides the lone pair of electrons, O-, S-, Se-, N-, P-, or C-coupling can occur. With N- and C-coupling, important and large groups of compounds are formed, namely azo compounds (mainly important as azo dyes) and triazenes, respectively. These compounds will be discussed in Chapters 12 and 13, respectively. 

The mechanism through which catalytic metal carbene reactions occur is outlined in Scheme 2. With dirhodium(II) catalysts the open axial coordination site on each rhodium serves as the Lewis acid center that undergoes electrophilic addition to the diazo compound. Lewis bases that can occupy the axial coor-... 

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