Electrophilic Addition to Double and Triple Bonds

For a review of the stereochemistry of electrophilic additions to double and triple bonds, see Fahey Top. Ster-eochem. 1948, 3. 237-342. For a review of the synthetic uses of stereoselective additions, sec Bartlett Tetrahedron 1980, 36. 2-72. pp. 3-15. 

Electrophilic addition of sulfenyl compounds at carbon-carbon double bonds, extensively studied and reviewed2,4 715 106, finds numerous synthetic applications owing to the regio- and stereoselectivity of the addition26. The most common types of agents for the electrophilic addition of sulfur to double and triple bonds are sulfenyl halides (RSX,... 

Electrophilic addition reactions are another dass of reactions that have been extensively studied in organic solvents from a mechanistic point of view and bromine addition is one of the most investigated addition reactions. Chiappe et al. have used ionic liquids to synthesize vidnal dihaloalkanes and dihaloalkenes by dectrophilic addition of halogens to double and triple bonds (Scheme 5.1-15) [48-50]. Recently, dibromides have also been synthesized [51] in ionic liquids using electrogenerated bromine, whereas bromohydrins have been obtained [52] under two-phase conditions (water/IL) through a vanadium (V) catalyzed oxidation of bromide ions by hydrogen peroxide. 

Scheme 5.1-15 Synthesis of vicinal dihaloalkanes and dihaloalkenes by electrophilic addition of halogens to double and triple bonds in various ionic liquids.

As mentioned above, carbocations feature in many reactions, such as nucleophilic substitution (Sjjl) and elimination (El), additions of electrophiles to double and triple bonds, electrophilic aromatic substitution, and additions to carbonyl compounds and enolate chemistry (albeit in masked form). 

Addition to R—" "N=C is not a matter of a species with an electron pair adding to one atom and a species without a pair adding to the other, as is addition to the other types of double and triple bonds in this chapter and Chapter 15. In these additions, the electrophile and the nucleophile both add to the carbon. No species add to the nitrogen, which, however, loses its positive charge by obtaining as an unshared pair one of the triple-bond pairs of electrons ... 

The previous sections dealt with reactions in which the new carbon-carbon bond is formed by addition of the nucleophile to a carbonyl group. Another important method for alkylation of carbon nucleophiles involves addition to an electrophilic multiple bond. The electrophilic reaction partner is typically an a,(3-unsaturated ketone, aldehyde, or ester, but other electron-withdrawing substituents such as nitro, cyano, or sulfonyl also activate carbon-carbon double and triple bonds to nucleophilic attack. The reaction is called conjugate addition or the Michael reaction. 

Borst et al. <2005CEJ3631> conducted a study on the synthesis of strained bicyclic phosphirane and phosphirene iron-tetracarbonyl complexes (Scheme 11). It was shown that, depending on the ring size of the resulting heterocycle, electrophilic phosphinidene [Ri-PrNP=Fe(CO)4] could be trapped intramolecularly with both double and triple bonds (compounds 146-150). The phosphinidene addition was found to be reversible at room temperature and when using phenylacetylene as solvent, exchange between phenylacetylene and the phosphinidene group took place. Compound 151 was isolated as the dimer, compound 152. 

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. 

It seems obvious that electron-withdrawing groups enhance nucleophilic addition and inhibit electrophilic addition because they lower the electron density of the double bond. This is probably true, and yet similar reasoning does not always apply to a comparison between double and triple bonds.70 There is a higher concentration of electrons between the carbons of a triple bond than in a double bond, and yet triple bonds are less subject to electrophilic attack and more subject to nucleophilic attack than double bonds.71 This statement is not universally true, but it does hold in most cases. In compounds containing both double and triple bonds (nonconjugated), bromine, an electrophilic reagent, always adds... 

Fukui functions and local softnesses and their application in typical organic reactions (electrophilic substitutions on aromatic systems, nucleophilic additions to activated carbon-carbon double and triple bonds) [34-39]. 

Electrophilic addition of sulphenyl halides to alkenes occurs, by all the evidence, via cyclic thiiranium ions (Mueller, 1969) and a comparison of the rates of addition to the double and triple bond would be quite interesting. Unfortunately, direct kinetic data for strictly comparable and typical cases are not available. Phenylacetylene has been reported (Kharasch and Yannios, 1964) to react 102 times slower than styrene (in acetic acid at 25°) with 2,4-dinitrobenzenesulphenyl chloride. On the other hand, Thaler (1969), by means of competitive experiments carried out in dilute paraffin solutions at — 70°, estimated that methane-sulphenyl chloride adds to mono- (and di-)alkylacetylenes 50-100 times more slowly than to the corresponding alkenes (cis) (but only ca. twice slower than to trans dialkylethylenes). The paucity of information does not allow generalizations and further work in this area seems desirable also with respect to the much larger rate differences observed in those bromine additions to triple and double bonds which also occur via bridged species. 

Electrophilic addition of carbenes to carbon-carbon double and triple bonds has been extremely useful synthetically. In many cases, the reaction goes with 100% stereospecificity, so that the stereochemistry about a double bond in the starting material is maintained in the product. Cases in which addition is not 100% stereospecific are rationalized on the basis of a triplet or diradical intermediate. If the triplet carbene is relatively unreactive, the formation of the two new carbon-carbon bonds may be a stepwise process that allows for rotation and, therefore, loss of stereochemistry in the intermediate. 

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