Enol ethers, cyclopropanation using zinc

Enol ethers may also be cyclopropanated using zinc carbenoids stereoselectively. Furukawa cyclopropanation of enol ether 32 proceeds with high stereoselection, and the obtained cyclopropyl ether 33 can be easily transformed into the enantiomerically pure cyclopropyl alcohol 35 [30]. In this case, high stereoselectivity is achieved by employing the chiral diol 36, which is not commercially available. Using the commercially available enantiopure diol 37, the level of stereoselectivity is significantly lower (Scheme 7). 

The cyclopropanation of 1-trimethylsilyloxycyclohexene in the present procedure is accomplished by reaction with diiodomethane and diethylzinc in ethyl ether." This modification of the usual Simmons-Smith reaction in which diiodomethane and activated zinc are used has the advantage of being homogeneous and is often more effective for the cyclopropanation of olefins such as enol ethers which polymerize readily. However, in the case of trimethylsilyl enol ethers, the heterogeneous procedures with either zinc-copper couple or zinc-silver couple are also successful. Attempts by the checkers to carry out Part B in benzene or toluene at reflux instead of ethyl ether afforded the trimethylsilyl ether of 2-methylenecyclohexanol, evidently owing to zinc iodide-catalyzed isomerization of the initially formed cyclopropyl ether. The preparation of l-trimethylsilyloxybicyclo[4.1.0]heptane by cyclopropanation with diethylzinc and chloroiodomethane in the presence of oxygen has been reported. "... 

A very useful class of chiral auxiliaries has been developed for alkenes substituted with a heteroatom. These auxiliaries, attached to the heteroatom, allow for the preparation of enantiomerically enriched cyclopropanols, cyclopropylamines and cyclopropylboronic acids. Tai and coworkers have developed a method to efficiently generate substituted cyclopropanol derivatives using the cyclopropanation of a chiral enol ether (equation 78) . The reaction proceeds with very high diastereocontrol with five- to eight-membered ring sizes as well as with acyclic enol ethers. The potential problem with the latter is the control of the double bond geometry upon enol ether formation. A detailed mechanistic study involving two zinc centers in the transition structure has been reported. ... 

Methylene difluorocyclopropanes are relatively rare and their rearrangement chemistry has been reviewed recently [14]. In addition, electron deficient alkenes such as sesquiterpenoid methylene lactones may be competent substrates. Two crystal structures of compounds prepared in this way were reported recently [15,16]. Other relatively recent methods use dibromodifluoromethane, a relatively inexpensive and liquid precursor. Dolbier and co-workers described a simple zinc-mediated protocol [17], while Balcerzak and Jonczyk described a useful reproducible phase transfer catalysed procedure (Eq. 6) using bromo-form and dibromodifluoromethane [18]. The only problem here appears to be in separating cyclopropane products from alkene starting material (the authors recommend titration with bromine which is not particularly amenable for small scale use). Schlosser and co-workers have also described a mild ylide-based approach using dibromodifluoromethane [19] which reacts particularly well with highly nucleophilic alkenes such as enol ethers [20], and remarkably, with alkynes [21] to afford labile difluorocyclopropenes (Eq. 7). 

The selective cyclopropanation of the a-enone silyl enol ether 75, by methylene iodide and the zinc-silver couple 2), is remarkable. Only the double bond bearing the tri-methylsiloxy group reacted to yield the 1-trimethylsiloxy vinylcyclopropane 76 when not more than 1.1 equivalent of the Simmons-Smith reagent was used, but the bis-cyclopropanation product 77 was obtained in good yield with an excess (3 equivalents) of the cyclopropanating reagent, Eq. (24) 42). 

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