Electrophilic addition reactions, alkynes halogens

Electrophilic addition of the halogens and related X—Y reagents to alkenes and alkynes has been a standard procedure since the beginning of modem organic chemistry.1 Anti electrophilic bromination of such simple compounds as cyclohexene and ( )- and (Z)-2-butene, and variants of this reaction when water or methanol are solvents (formation of halohydrin or their methyl ethers, respectively), are frequently employed as prototype examples of stereospecific reactions in elementary courses in organic chemistry. A simple test for unsaturation involves addition of a dilute solution of bromine in CCU to the... 

The product of the second addition reaction is a geminal dihalide, a molecule with two halogens on the same carbon. Geminal comes from geminus, which is Latin for twin. If the alkyne is a terminal alkyne, the first electrophilic addition reaction is also regioselective the adds to the less substituted sp carbon (that is, the one bonded to the hydrogen). 

Addition reactions at the alkyne bonds are dealt with in the section on alkenylstannanes that are produced. The alkynyl-tin bond is more readily cleaved by both electrophiles and nucleophiles than is the alkenyl- or alkyl-tin bond. Strong electrophiles such as halogens or halogen acids attack at the z/Mzi-position of the triple bond to give a /3-stannyl cation that is stabilized by C-Sn hyperconjugation, but this is followed by cleavage of the C-Sn bond (Equation (83)). 

Electrophilic attack at carbyne complexes may ultimately place the electrophile on either the metal or the (former) carbyne carbon, the two possibilities being related in principle by a-elimination/migratory insertion processes (Figure 5.39). The reactions of the osmium carbyne complex are suggestive of an analogy with alkynes. Each of these reactions (hydro-halogenation, chlorination, chalcogen addition, metal complexation see below) have parallels in the chemistry of alkynes. 

Volume 9 deals with the majority of addition and elimination reactions involving aliphatic compounds. Chapter 1 covers electrophilic addition processes, mainly of water, acids and halogens to olefins and acetylenes, and Chapter 2 the addition of unsaturated compounds to each other (the Diels-Alder reaction and other cycloadditions). This is followed by a full discussion of a-, y- and S-eliminations (mainly olefin and alkyne forming) and fragmentation reactions. In Chapter 4 carbene and carbenoid reactions, and in Chapter 5 alkene isomerisation (including prototropic and anionotropic, and Cope and Claisen rearrangements), are discussed. 

The biosynthesis of certain halogenated marine natural products is intriguing. Some of their halogens appear to have been introduced as electrophiles rather than as Lewis bases or nucleophiles, which is their character when they are solutes in seawater. But how do marine organisms transform nucleophilic halide anions into electrophilic species for incorporation into their metabolites It happens that many marine organisms have enzymes called haloperoxidases that convert nucleophilic iodide, bromide, or chloride anions into electrophilic species that react like F, Br, or CF. In the biosynthetic schemes proposed for some halogenated natural products, positive halogen intermediates are attacked by electrons from the 77 bond of an alkene or alkyne in an addition reaction. 

As a center of high electron density, the triple bond is readily attacked by electrophiles. This section describes the resnlts of three such processes addition of hydrogen halides, reaction with halogens, and hydration. The hydration is catalyzed by mercury(II) ions. As is the case in electrophilic additions to unsymmetrical alkenes (Section 12-3), the Markovnikov rule is followed in transformations of terminal alkynes The electrophile adds to the terminal (less snbstituted) carbon atom. 

The electrophile-induced cyclization of heteroatom nucleophiles onto an adjacent alkene function is a common strategy in heterocycle synthesis (319,320) and has been extended to electrophile-assisted nitrone generation (Scheme 1.62). The formation of a cyclic cationic species 296 from the reaction of an electrophile (E ), such as a halogen, with an alkene is well known and can be used to N-alkylate an oxime and so generate a nitrone (297). Thus, electrophile-promoted oxime-alkene reactions can occur at room temperature rather than under thermolysis as is common with 1,3-APT reactions. The induction of the addition of oximes to alkenes has been performed in an intramolecular sense with A-bromosuccinimide (NBS) (321-323), A-iodosuccinimide (NIS) (321), h (321,322), and ICl (321) for subsequent cycloaddition reactions of the cyclic nitrones with alkenes and alkynes. 

It is evident from the above arguments that the addition of halogens to alkynes may occur by a multiplicity of mechanisms. One more argument is offered by a kinetic study of the addition of bromine to diphenylacetylene in bromobenzene reported by Sinn et al. (1965). In this case kinetic data are better interpreted on the basis of a nucleophilic mechanism involving the intermediacy of a vinyl anion, rather than an electrophilic reaction. 

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