Electrophilic substitution, with aminothiazole

Experimental requirements for the isolation of these nitramino derivatives are developed in Ref. 87. They rearrange easily to ring nitro-substituted isomers (see Section V.6). In the 2-aminothiazole series, nitration may proceed through direct electrophilic substitution competing with rearrangement of nitramino derivatives. Dickey et al. have shown that the rearrangement proceeds rapidly in 96% sulfuric acid at 2(fC, but in 85% sulfuric add it is very slow so. according the concentration of add various mechanisms can participate in the formation of the 5-nitro derivative. 

The 2-nitrothiazole can be reduced to the corresponding aminothiazole by catalytic or chemical reduction (82, 85, 89). The 5-nitrothiazole can also be reduced with low yield to impure 5-aminothiazole (1, 85). All electrophilic substitution reactions are largely inhibited by the presence of the nitro substituent. Nevertheless, the nitration of 2-nitrothiazoIe to 2,4-dinitrothiazole can be accomplished (see Section IV). 

Attack on the electrophilic C-2 may occur as in the 2-aminothiazoles series, which probably explains the rearrangements observed in acidic medium (121, 711, 712, 723, 724), in aqueous medium with NaOAc (725), or with aqueous NaHCOj (725) (Scheme 232). That the initial attack probably involves the C-2 atom is substantiated by the fact that this rearrangement occurs under extremely mild conditions for 2-iinino-3-substituted-5-nitro-4-thiazolines (725). As the whole mechanism proposed (see p. 92) is reversible, when imino derivatives are submitted to such rearrangement conditions the rearrangement is expected to occur faster if steric interaction between 3- and 4-substituents exists in the 2-imino isomer. Another reaction may occur in acidic medium phenylimino-2-bipheny]-3,4-4-thiazoline hydrolyzed with hydrochloric acid gives the corresponding 4-thiazoline-2-one and aniline (717). 

In agreement with the theory of polarized radicals, the presence of substituents on heteroaromatic free radicals can slightly affect their polarity. Both 4- and 5-substituted thiazol-2-yl radicals have been generated in aromatic solvents by thermal decomposition of the diazoamino derivative resulting from the reaction of isoamyl nitrite on the corresponding 2-aminothiazole (250,416-418). Introduction in 5-position of electron-withdrawing substituents slightly enhances the electrophilic character of thiazol-2-yl radicals (Table 1-57). 

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