Elimination Reactions of Alkyl and Alkenyl Halides

Problem 7.7. Draw and name the products expected in the Diels-Alder reaction between cyclopentadiene and 3-chloro-l-propene (allyl chloride [H2C=CH-CH2C1]). 

Problem 7.8. Based on the path shown for the synthesis of chlordan(e), provide a reasonable synthesis for aldrin and deldrin. 

Substrates and generalized pathways for the elimination of HX and Xi from haloalkanes. Mechanistic information will be discussed subsequently. No presumption is intended about the path from the drawings provided. 

Examples of elimination of hydrogen halide (HX, X = Br) from sp -hybridized carbon are provided in Table 7.8. Reactions in which other hydrogen halides have been eliminated are also known but, in general, they have been less extensively studied. The first example in Table 7.8 illustrates a thermal 1,1- (or a) elimination to produce a carbene, which inserts into an adjacent C-H bond to produce ethyne (acetylene, H-C=C-H). This reaction is first order in substrate and commonly occurs 

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In Grignard reactions, Mg(0) metal reacts with organic halides of. sp carbons (alkyl halides) more easily than halides of sp carbons (aryl and alkenyl halides). On the other hand. Pd(0) complexes react more easily with halides of carbons. In other words, alkenyl and aryl halides undergo facile oxidative additions to Pd(0) to form complexes 1 which have a Pd—C tr-bond as an initial step. Then mainly two transformations of these intermediate complexes are possible insertion and transmetallation. Unsaturated compounds such as alkenes. conjugated dienes, alkynes, and CO insert into the Pd—C bond. The final step of the reactions is reductive elimination or elimination of /J-hydro-gen. At the same time, the Pd(0) catalytic species is regenerated to start a new catalytic cycle. The transmetallation takes place with organometallic compounds of Li, Mg, Zn, B, Al, Sn, Si, Hg, etc., and the reaction terminates by reductive elimination. 

Secondary bromides and tosylates react with inversion of stereochemistry, as in the classical SN2 substitution reaction.24 Alkyl iodides, however, lead to racemized product. Aryl and alkenyl halides are reactive, even though the direct displacement mechanism is not feasible. For these halides, the overall mechanism probably consists of two steps an oxidative addition to the metal, after which the oxidation state of the copper is +3, followed by combination of two of the groups from the copper. This process, which is very common for transition metal intermediates, is called reductive elimination. The [R 2Cu] species is linear and the oxidative addition takes place perpendicular to this moiety, generating a T-shaped structure. The reductive elimination occurs between adjacent R and R groups, accounting for the absence of R — R coupling product. 

Another general process involves the reaction of Pd(0) species with halides or sulfonates by oxidative addition, generating reactive intermediates having the organic group attached to Pd(II) by a ct bond. The oxidative addition reaction is very useful for aryl and alkenyl halides, but the products from saturated alkyl halides often decompose by (3-elimination. The a-bonded species formed by oxidative addition can react with alkenes and other unsaturated compounds to form new carbon-carbon bonds. The... 

Oxidative addition [1, 38] of 1-alkenyl, i-alkynyl, allyl, benzyl, and aiyl halides to a palladium(O) complex affords a stable rra .s-<7-palladium(II) complex (11). The reaction proceeds with complete retention of configuration for alkenyl halides and with inversion for allylic and benzylic halides. Alkyl halides having /3-hydrogens are rarely useful because the oxidative addition step is very slow and may compete with /3-hydride elimination from the a-organopalladium(II) species. However, it has been recently shown that iodoalkanes undergo the cross-coupling reaction with organoboron compounds (Section 2.4.5). 

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