Enolizable ketones aldol condensation

Claisen-Schmidt reaction (Section 18.10) A mixed aldol condensation in which an aromatic aldehyde reacts with an enolizable aldehyde or ketone. 

The addition of the a-carbon of an enolizable aldehyde or ketone 1 to the carbonyl group of a second aldehyde or ketone 2 is called the aldol reaction It is a versatile method for the formation of carbon-carbon bonds, and is frequently used in organic chemistry. The initial reaction product is a /3-hydroxy aldehyde (aldol) or /3-hydroxy ketone (ketol) 3. A subsequent dehydration step can follow, to yield an o ,/3-unsaturated carbonyl compound 4. In that case the entire process is also called aldol condensation. 

Aldol condensation. Anhydrous lithium iodide (ca. 5 equivalents) promotes aldol condensation of ketones with enolizable or nonenolizable aldehydes. The intermediate aldol is usually not isolable, but can be intercepted by addition of ClSi(CH3)3 and N(C2H5)3. In this case Lil can be used in a catalytic amount. The salt cannot be replaced by LiBror LiCl or Nal. 

Crossed aldol condensations between benzaldehyde or cinnamic aldehyde or their derivatives ketones pose no chemoselectivity problems. The least sterically hindered ketone, acetone, may condense with benzaldehyde, cinnamic aldehyde, and their derivatives with both enolizable positions if an excess of the aldehyde is employed. 

Enolate D of Figure 13.71 can undergo an aldol reaction with the C=0 double bond of the ketone. The bicyclic compound A is formed as the condensation product. It is often possible to combine the formation and the consecutive reaction of a Michael adduct in a one-pot reaction. The overall reaction then is an annulation of a cyclohexenone to an enolizable ketone. The reaction sequence of Figure 13.71 is the Robinson annulation, an extraordinarily important synthesis of six-membered rings. 

In analogous fashion, titanium and tin enolates are formed by the reaction of enolizable ketones with a tertiary amine and TiCl4 or SnOTf2, respectively. The reactions of titanium enolates are highly selective and comparable to boron enolates in aldol condensations. 

A feature distinguishing Reformatsky enolates from base-generated enolates is that zinc enolates add to highly hindered as well as to easily enolizable ketones, such as cyclopentanones, thus avoiding formation of condensation products. Moreover, there is no danger of a Claisen-type self-condensation since zinc-enolates do not react with esters but react readily with aldehydes and ketones to furnish aldol-type products. 

Enolizable ketones, e.g. cyclopropyl methyl ketone (15), are sometimes sensitive to aldol-type condensations under the usual reaction conditions. However, the aldol condensation can be avoided by the use of ambient rather than reflux temperature. 

Acdve methylene compounds ranging in acidity from -keto esters, malonates and nitroalkanes pK = 9-13) to ketones (pATa = 16-20) can be used in the Mannich reaction. The lack of examples using simple unactivated esters (p/iTa = 25) appears to be due to their weaker acidity or to transamination and/or hydrolysis side reactions. Enolizable aldehydes have also been used in certain instances however, side products arising from subsequent aldol condensation of the resulting -amino aldehyde often occur. Best results are achieved with a-branched aldehydes, which produce Mannich bases without enolizable protons. 

The reaction with oxirane, affording 0-F—C6H4—CH2CH2OH, can be carried out in a similar way and gives the alcohol in a reasonable (about 70%) yield. Oxirane is added in an excess of 30 %. In the absence of HMPT the reaction is very slow. Couplings with aldehydes and ketones or thiolation with elemental sulfur have to be carried out with the lithium compound, which can be prepared as indicated, or by addition of a solution of anhydrous LiBr in THF to the solution of the potassium compound. f-BuOLi present in the solution may give rise to aldol condensation of enolizable aldehydes and ketones, particularly at temperatures in the region of 0 °C. Therefore, the use of an excess of the aldehyde or ketone should be avoided. 

Surfaces with basic sites form enolates from both the aldehydes and ketones, leading to multiple aldol condensations and Michael additions. " Candidate molecules must be enolizable, i.e., contain an a-hydrogen atom. Aldol condensation / Michael addition products cover the range from a,p-unsaturated aldehydes, saturated aldehydes, hydrogenated products (alcohols), and the heavier aromatics resulting from multiple condensations. The presence of coordina-... 

When a ketone and an aldehyde are condensed in a cross-aldol reaction, excess ketone must be used to avoid aldehyde self-condensation, and even so the surface is essentially saturated with aldehyde at low temperature. Exceptions are reactions of easily enolizable ketones at ambient and lower temperatures. Therefore increasing the temperature often increases selectivity as well, a situation reminiscent of decarboxylative condensation, by allowing for greater ketone adsorption. 

There are certainly cases when we want a crossed-aldol condensation between two reactive partners that have an enolizable position, as in 3-pentanone with cyclopentanone. If 3-pentanone and benzaldehyde, which has no enolizable protons, can lead to three products, what will happen in this new case If an aldol condensation occurs under thermodynamic conditions. 3-pentanone reacts with sodium ethoxide to give enolate 120. This enolate can condense with either unenolized 3-pentanone (to produce 126) or with unenolized cyclopentanone (to produce 128). Both of these ketones are symmetrical, and there is no opportunity for additional enolates, which would further complicate the reaction (see below). The pAa of 3-pentanone and cyclopentanone are not... 

The aldol reaction, on the other hand, has been applied to the condensation of a variety of aldehydes with enolizable ketones. Both reactions are attractive, since they require only inexpensive reagents and produce no environmentally undesirable or hazardous wastes. 

The aldol condensation of aldehydes with enolizable ketones, especially methyl ketones, has found use in the field of carotenoid chemistry. This section does not cover the use of the aldol condensation in the formation of the building blocks, but only deals with the application of this type of reaction to construct the entire carotenoid molecule. 

Intramolecular aldol condensations are often more successful than the inter-molecular type. A particularly important example of the synthetic use of intramolecular condensation is in the Robinson annelation, a procedure that constructs a new six-membered ring from a ketone that has an enolizable hydrogen. The stages in which this alkylation-cyclization occurs are outlined below. The cyclization... 

In an aldol reaction, an enolizable carbonyl compound reacts with another carbonyl compound that is either an aldehyde or a ketone. The enolizable carbonyl compound, which must have at least one acidic proton in its a-position, acts as a nucleophile, whereas the carbonyl active component has electrophilic reactivity. In its classical meaning the aldol reaction is restricted to aldehydes and ketones and can occur between identical or nonidentical carbonyl compounds. The term aldol reaction , in a more advanced sense, is applied to any enolizable carbonyl compounds, for example carboxylic esters, amides, and carboxylates, that add to aldehydes or ketones. The primary products are always j5-hydroxycarbonyl compounds, which can undergo an elimination of water to form a,j5-unsaturated carbonyl compounds. The reaction that ends with the j5-hydroxycarbonyl compound is usually termed aldol addition whereas the reaction that includes the elimination process is denoted aldol condensation . The traditional aldol reaction [1] proceeds under thermodynamic control, as a reversible reaction, mediated either by acids or bases. 

Mixed aldol reactions between different aldehydes or ketones are usually plagued by formation of a mixture of products, because each component can function as a CH-acidic and carbonyl-active compound. Whereas the directed aldol reaction [14-16] is a rather general solution to this problem, the traditional aldol addition of non-identical carbonyl compounds is only successful when applied within the framework of a limited substitution pattern. Thus, a fruitful combination in mixed aldol reactions is that of an aldehyde with an enolizable ketone. Obviously, the aldehyde, having higher carbonyl reactivity, reacts as the electrophilic component, whereas the ketone, with comparatively lower carbonyl reactivity, serves as the CH-acidic counterpart. Because the self-aldolization of ketones is endothermic, this type of side reaction does not occur to a significant extent, so the product of the mixed aldol condensation is obtained in fair yield, as illustrated by the formation of ketone 6 from citral 5 and acetone, a key step in the synthesis of j5-ionone (Eq. (7)) [17]. 

The most efficient variant of this combination is based on reaction of an enolizable ketone with a non-enolizable aldehyde, so that self-condensation of the latter cannot occur. Several examples of this type of combination in aldol reactions are given in Scheme 1.2. Usually in situ elimination occurs, so a,j5-unsaturated ketones result, in particular when aromatic aldehydes are condensed with ketones ( Claisen-Schmidt reaction ) [18-21]. 

If the same reaction is performed in the presence of an enolizable ketone, the initially formed enal can undergo an aldol-type condensation to afford the... 

In Summary Treatment of enolizable aldehydes with catalytic base leads to jS-hydroxy aldehydes at low temperature and to a,jS-unsaturated aldehydes upon heating. The reaction proceeds by enolate attack on the carbonyl function. Aldol addition to a ketone carbonyl group is energetically unfavorable. To drive the aldol condensation of ketones to product, special conditions have to be used, such as removal of the water or the aldol formed in the reaction. 

The aldol condensation and related reactions are among the most important, and ubiquitous, construction reactions in organic synthesis. In these condensations, the carbonyl compound acts as both nucleophile and electrophile—the enol or enolate is the nucleophile, and the keto form is the electrophile. The reaction works with enolizable aldehydes (Figure 17.24) or ketones (Figure 17.25) and may be catalyzed by either acid or base. Almost all of the steps we write are equilibria—how can we persuade the reaction to go to completion In the base-catalyzed reaction, a catalyst such as barium hydroxide is placed inside a Soxhlet thimble, as in Figure 17.26. The reaction mixture is heated so that the acetone refluxes, but the product does not. Thus only the SM, and not the product, comes into contact with the catalyst, ensuring that the reverse reaction does not occur. Note that in the acid-catalyzed processes, it is common for the product to be dehydrated under the reaction conditions—this usually pulls the equilibrium over to the product. The mechanism of the elimination reaction may be El or E2 depending on the... 

There also exists an acidregioselective condensation of the aldol type, namely the Mannich reaction (B. Reichert, 1959 H. Hellmann, 1960 see also p. 291f.). The condensation of secondary amines with aldehydes yields Immonium salts, which react with ketones to give 3-amino ketones (=Mannich bases). Ketones with two enolizable CHj-groupings may form 1,5-diamino-3-pentanones, but monosubstitution products can always be obtained in high yield. Unsymmetrical ketones react preferentially at the most highly substituted carbon atom. Sterical hindrance can reverse this regioselectivity. Thermal elimination of amines leads to the a,)3-unsaturated ketone. Another efficient pathway to vinyl ketones starts with the addition of terminal alkynes to immonium salts. On mercury(ll) catalyzed hydration the product is converted to the Mannich base (H. Smith, 1964). 

Among the enolates of carboxylic acid derivatives, esters are the most widely used. Ester enolates cannot be used in crossed aldols with aldehydes because the aldehyde is both more enolizable and more electrophilic than the ester. It will just condense with itself and ignore the ester. The same is true for ketones. A specific enol equivalent for the ester will therefore be needed for a successful ester aldol reaction. 

A simple example from the first report of this reaction by Gilbert Stork and his group in 1974 is the condensation of pentan-2-one with butanal to give the aldol and then the enone oct-4-en-3-one by acid-catalysed dehydration. The yields may seem disappointing, but this was the first time anyone had carried out a crossed aldol reaction like this with an unsymmetrical ketone and an enolizable aldehyde and got just one aldol product in any reasonable yield at all. 

The isolation of the initial aldol products from the condensation of the enolates of carbene complexes and carbonyl compounds is possible if the carbonyl compound is pretreated with a Lewis acid. As indicated in equation (9), the scope of the aldol reaction can also be extended to ketones and enolizable aldehydes by this procedure. The condensations with ketones were most successful when boron trifluoride etherate was employed, and for aldehydes, the Lewis acid of choice is titanium tetrachloride. The carbonyl compound is pretreated with a stoichiometric amount of the Lewis acid and to this is added a solution of the anion generated from the caibene complex. An excess of the carbonyl-Lewis acid complex (2-10 equiv.) is employed however, above 2 equiv. only small improvements in the overall yield are realized. 

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