Electrophilic aromatic substitution, acylation intermediates

A more practical solution to this problem was reported by Larson, in which the amide substrate 20 was treated with oxalyl chloride to afford a 2-chlorooxazolidine-4,5-dione 23. Reaction of this substrate with FeCL affords a reactive A-acyl iminium ion intermediate 24, which undergoes an intramolecular electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction to provide 25. Deprotection of 25 with acidic methanol affords the desired dihydroisoquinoline products 22. This strategy avoids the problematic nitrilium ion intermediate, and provides generally good yields of 3-aryl dihydroisoquinolines. 

The synthesis of an alkylated aromatic compound 3 by reaction of an aromatic substrate 1 with an alkyl halide 2, catalyzed by a Lewis acid, is called the Friedel-Crafts alkylation This method is closely related to the Friedel-Crafts acylation. Instead of the alkyl halide, an alcohol or alkene can be used as reactant for the aromatic substrate under Friedel-Crafts conditions. The general principle is the intermediate formation of a carbenium ion species, which is capable of reacting as the electrophile in an electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction. 

The synthesis of 3-aryltetrahydroisoquinolines was accomplished by electrophilic aromatic substitution of polysubstituted phenols and phenyl ethers with Lewis acid-generated tosyliminium ions of 2-tosyl-3-methoxytetrahydroisoquinoline derivatives <00SL801>. In addition isoquinoline was reported to react with N-tosylated (R)- or (S)-amino acid fluorides to afford optically active dihydroimidazoisoquinolinones. The reaction proceeds via acylation followed by attack of the tosylamino group at Cl of the intermediate 2-tosylaminoacylisoquinolinium salt <00TL5479>. 

Acylation, rather than alkylation, occurs. Acyl chlorides are more reactive than alkyl chlorides toward electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions as a result of the more stable intermediate... 

Aromatic compounds react mainly by electrophilic aromatic substitution, in which one or more ring hydrogens are replaced by various electrophiles. Typical reactions are chlorination, bromination, nitration, sulfonation, alkylation, and acylation (the last two are Friedel-Crafts reactions). The mechanism involves two steps addition of the electrophile to a ring carbon, to produce an intermediate benzenonium ion, followed by proton loss to again achieve the (now substituted) aromatic system. 

Carbonyl groups form complexes or intermediates with Lewis acids like AICI3, BF3, and SnCl4. For example, in the Friedel-Crafts acylation reaction in nonpolar solvents, an aluminum chloride complex of an acid chloride is often the acylating agent. Because of the basicity of ketones, the products of the acylation reaction are also complexes. For more detail on electrophilic aromatic substitution, see Section 7. 

If the anodic oxidation of N-alkylanilines is performed in the presence of nucleophiles like enol ethers, nucleophilic substitution in the of-position to nitrogen by the enol ether can be observed in low yields. The electrophilic intermediate is the N-aryl iminium ion or the N-aryl imine after loss of two electrons and one or two protons. These intermediates add to the enol ether to give acetals (up to 26%) as addition products, or the first addition step is followed by an electrophilic aromatic substitution to form tetrahydroqui-nolines (13-39%) [47]. It should be noted at this point that better results for the nucleophilic a-substitution to nitrogen can be obtained with N,N-dialkylanilines (see next subsection). Optimum results, however, are obtained with N-acylated compounds via the intermediate N-acyl iminium ions (see Ref. 8). 

Benzene s aromaticity causes it to undergo electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions. The electrophilic addition reactions characteristic of alkenes and dienes would lead to much less stable nonaromatic addition products. The most common electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions are halogenation, nitration, sulfonation, and Friedel-Crafts acylation and alkylation. Once the electrophile is generated, all electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions take place by the same two-step mechanism (1) The aromatic compound reacts with an electrophile, forming a carbocation intermediate and (2) a base pulls off a proton from the carbon that... 

The Stolle reaction is thought to occur via a typical mechanism for amide formation from an amine and acid chloride, followed by Friedel-Crafts alkylation or acylation. No definitive mechanistic work has been performed on this reaction, but incorporating the mechnistic understandings of two steps provides a firm basis for understanding the mechanism of this reaction. Formation of the mono-amide from oxalyl chloride and aniline provides intermediate 4, which in the presence of AICI3 undergoes intramolecular electrophilic aromatic substitution to the desired 2,3-dioxindole (isatin) 7 via intermediates 5 and 6. 

A Friedel-Crafts alkylation is an electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction that attaches a carbon-carbon bond to the ring.The electrophile is R, which will add to the aromatic ring to produce a cyclohexadienyl cation. Aromaticity is regained when that intermediate cyclohexadienyl cation is deprotonated. That s all there is to it—all the rest is details. Remember to watch out for rearrangements, because this Friedel-Crafts alkylation is especially prone to them. In the Friedel-Crafts acylation, an acid chloride is used to generate the acylium ion which is the reactive electrophile. No rearrangements are observed in Friedel-Crafts acylation. 

In Summary The problems of Friedel-Crafts alkylation (multiple substitution and carboca-tion rearrangements) are avoided in Friedel-Crafts acylations, in which an acyl halide or carboxylic acid anhydride is the reaction partner, in the presence of a Lewis acid. The intermediate acylium cations undergo electrophilic aromatic substitution to yield the corresponding aromatic ketones. 

A reaction in which an electrophile participates in het-erolytic substitution of another molecular entity that supplies both of the bonding electrons. In the case of aromatic electrophilic substitution (AES), one electrophile (typically a proton) is substituted by another electron-deficient species. AES reactions include halogenation (which is often catalyzed by the presence of a Lewis acid salt such as ferric chloride or aluminum chloride), nitration, and so-called Friedel-Crafts acylation and alkylation reactions. On the basis of the extensive literature on AES reactions, one can readily rationalize how this process leads to the synthesis of many substituted aromatic compounds. This is accomplished by considering how the transition states structurally resemble the carbonium ion intermediates in an AES reaction. 

By comparison with the reactions with aromatic substrates, the absence of the driving force of rearo-matization by proton loss in electrophilic acylations of alkenes leads to competition between alternative pathways for the carbocation intermediate. In particular, capture of halide to form 3-halo ketones can become dominant. Hence, the aliphatic Friedel-Crafts acylation reaction need not necessarily result in substitution of an acyl residue for a hydrogen atom in an alkene, nor in the formation of unsaturated ketones. Indeed, within this broader scope, acylations of alkynes and some classes of alkanes can be synthetically useful. 

Successively, Friedel and Crafts studied the generality and the limitations of the new synthetic method. They found that the reaction could be successfully applied to a large number of aromatic compounds, as well as alkyl and acyl chlorides or anhydrides in the presence of chlorides of certain metals such as aluminum, zinc, and iron. A mechanistic hypothesis was postulated on the basis of the possible existence of an intermediate compound 3 formed between benzene and aluminum chloride (Scheme 1.2). This intermediate would react with the electrophilic reagent, giving the substitution product and restoring the catalyst. 

Friedel-Crafts reactions are important methods for introducing carbon substituents on aromatic rings. The reactive intermediates are electrophilic carbon species. In some reactions, discrete carbonium ions or acylium ions are involved in other cases, however, the electrophile no doubt consists of the alkyl or acyl group still bonded to a potential leaving group, which is displaced in the substitution step. Whether discrete carbonium ions are involved depends primarily on the stability of the potential carbonium ion. 

The electrophile is usually produced by the reaction between a catalyst and a compound containing a potential electrophile (Eq. 15.3). The second-order nature of the reaction arises from the step shown in Equation 15.4 in which one molecule each of arene and electrophile react to give a cationic intermediate. The formation of this cation is the rate-determining step (rds) in the overall reaction the subsequent deprotonation of the cation (Eq. 15.5) is fast. The bimolecular nature of the transition state for the rate-limiting step and the fact that an electrophile is involved in attacking the aromatic substrate classifies the reaction as S 2 (Substitution Electrophilic Bimolecular). Experiments involving four different such reactions are given in this chapter Friedel-Crafts alkylation and acylation, nitration, and bromination. 

Apparent anomalies in reactivity have appeared to exist for a number of reactions. It is not generally known that under conventional EQ conditions, an electrophile can promote aromatic metalation during the quench step. It was stated in an early report [130] that the reaction of phenothiazine 31 with 2 equivalents of n-BuLi proceeds with formation of dilithio intermediate 33 via monoUthio amide 32 (Scheme 26.8). The fact that the regioselectivity of the reaction is dependent on the electrophile used was not properly analyzed by the authors whereas trapping experiments with RCOX=DME, PhCONMe, MeCO Li, PhCO Li, and CO give C(7j-acylation products 34, the reaction of RX = MeCOCl, Mel, and ethylene oxide provides lVjf70)-substitution products 35. 

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