Oxygen electrophilic, addition

Epoxidation is an electrophilic addition oxygen is transferred to the more electron-rich, more highly substituted double bond. A tetrasubstituted double bond reacts faster than a disubstituted one. 

The aromatic ring of a phenoxy anion is the site of electrophilic addition, eg, in methylolation with formaldehyde (qv). The phenoxy anion is highly reactive to many oxidants such as oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, ozone, and peroxyacetic acid. Many of the chemical modification reactions of lignin utilizing its aromatic and phenoHc nature have been reviewed elsewhere (53). 

Protonation on oxygen opens the epoxide ring and gives a tertiary carbocation at C4. Intramolecular electrophilic addition of C4 to the 5,10 double bond then yields a tertiary monocyclic carbocation at C10. 

The activation of NPGs during a glycosylation reaction (Scheme 5.7a) depends on electrophilic addition to the olefin (—>111), followed by intramolecular displacement by the anomeric oxygen to form the oxonium species IV. Trapping with a glycosyl... 

In qualitative terms, the rearrangement reaction is considerably more efficient for the oxime acetate 107b than for the oxime ether 107a. As a result, the photochemical reactivity of the oxime acetates 109 and 110 was probed. Irradiation of 109 for 3 hr, under the same conditions used for 107, affords the cyclopropane 111 (25%) as a 1 2 mixture of Z.E isomers. Likewise, DCA-sensitized irradiation of 110 for 1 hr yields the cyclopropane derivative 112 (16%) and the dihydroisoxazole 113 (18%). It is unclear at this point how 113 arises in the SET-sensitized reaction of 110. However, this cyclization process is similar to that observed in our studies of the DCA-sensitized reaction of the 7,8-unsaturated oximes 114, which affords the 5,6-dihydro-4//-l,2-oxazines 115 [68]. A possible mechanism to justify the formation of 113 could involve intramolecular electrophilic addition to the alkene unit in 116 of the oxygen from the oxime localized radical-cation, followed by transfer of an acyl cation to any of the radical-anions present in the reaction medium. 

It has already been mentioned (Section III) that the study of the diastereoselection in the electrophilic addition of singlet oxygen to the n face of chiral alkenes is of primary interest for the achievement of a selective oxyfunctionalization reaction. Zeolite confinement and cation- 7r interactions might be expected to affect significantly the diastereoselectivity in the photooxygenation of chiral alkenes. 

Electron-deficient alkenes generally require the use of some other epoxidation procedure, owing to their low reactivity under electrophilic addition conditions. Within this categoiy, o,P-unsaturated ketones tend to be the substrates of interest, and basic oxygen transfer reagents are fiequently encountered, such as HjOj/NaOH, t-BuOOH/NaOH, and NaOCl. Much activity has centered around the modification of these traditional conditions to accommodate asymmetric induction. In this regard, variously substituted Cinchona alkaloids (e.g., 39 - 41) have received a fair amount of attention over the past year. 

Addition reactions occur in compounds having n electrons in carbon-carbon double (alkenes) or triple bonds (alkynes) or carbon-oxygen double bonds (aldehydes and ketones). Addition reactions are of two types electrophilic addition to alkenes and alkynes, and nucleophilic addition to aldehydes and ketones. In an addition reaction, the product contains all of the elements of the two reacting species. 

The most important method of preparation involves oxidation, or epoxidation, of an alkene with a peroxycarboxylic acid, RC03H. This reaction achieves suprafacial addition of oxygen across the double bond, and is a type of electrophilic addition to alkenes (see Exercise 15-53) ... 

The direct electrophilic addition of the elements H—X to aikenes, dienes and alkynes, where X = halogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and selenium, is among the oldest known and most important synthetic methods used to prepare the corresponding addition compounds. Unfortunately, much of the early lit-... 

The addition of thiols to C—C multiple bonds may proceed via an electrophilic pathway involving ionic processes or a free radical chain pathway. The main emphasis in the literature has been on the free radical pathway, and little work exists on electrophilic processes.534-537 The normal mode of addition of the relatively weakly acidic thiols is by the electrophilic pathway in accordance with Markovnikov s rule (equation 299). However, it is established that even the smallest traces of peroxide impurities, oxygen or the presence of light will initiate the free radical mode of addition leading to anti-Markovnikov products. Fortunately, the electrophilic addition of thiols is catalyzed by protic acids, such as sulfuric acid538 and p-toluenesulfonic acid,539 and Lewis acids, such as aluminum chloride,540 boron trifluoride,536 titanium tetrachloride,540 tin(IV) chloride,536 540 zinc chloride536 and sulfur dioxide.541... 

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