Epoxidation reaction mechanism

Several significant reviews have appeared in recent years which contributed greatly to current knowledge of epoxide reaction mechanisms. Among them may be cited excellent discussions by Winetein and Henderson,am Kliel, 0 and Parker and Isaacs. Older articles of an encyclopedic nature include those of Bodforss,1 Meerwein,11 and Tiffeneau.1117 The well-known review by StreifcwieeerlMa may be consulted for a broader treatment of nucleophilic displacement reactions in general. 

Transition metal-catalyzed epoxidations, by peracids or peroxides, are complex and diverse in their reaction mechanisms (Section 5.05.4.2.2) (77MI50300). However, most advantageous conversions are possible using metal complexes. The use of t-butyl hydroperoxide with titanium tetraisopropoxide in the presence of tartrates gave asymmetric epoxides of 90-95% optical purity (80JA5974). 

The suggested reaction mechanism involves a nucleophilic attack of the imine nitrogen at the activated triple bond, followed by a proton exchange, to give a benzimidazolinium system which, by intramolecular attack at the carbonyl group, leads to an epoxide that ring opens to the observed product. For the ethyl derivative (R = Et) a tub conformation could be established by X-ray crystallographic analysis.33... 

Since the discovery of the catalyst of Au over Ti02 support for vapor phase C3H6 epoxidation [1], great efforts have been made to understand the reaction mechanism in order to improve the catalyst performance [2,3]. Currraitly the Au catalyst suffers from low activity and fast deactivation, and is thus far from commercialization. Perhaps it is why at present no publication on the reaction kinetics can be found in the literature. 

Intramolecular oxonium ylide formation is assumed to initialize the copper-catalyzed transformation of a, (3-epoxy diazomethyl ketones 341 to olefins 342 in the presence of an alcohol 333 . The reaction may be described as an intramolecular oxygen transfer from the epoxide ring to the carbenoid carbon atom, yielding a p,y-unsaturated a-ketoaldehyde which is then acetalized. A detailed reaction mechanism has been proposed. In some cases, the oxonium-ylide pathway gives rise to additional products when the reaction is catalyzed by copper powder. If, on the other hand, diazoketones of type 341 are heated in the presence of olefins (e.g. styrene, cyclohexene, cyclopen-tene, but not isopropenyl acetate or 2,3-dimethyl-2-butene) and palladium(II) acetate, intermolecular cyclopropanation rather than oxonium ylide derived chemistry takes place 334 ). 

The reaction of metabolically generated polycyclic aromatic diol epoxides with DNA Ua vivo is believed to be an important and critical event in chemical carcinogenesis Cl,2). In recent years, much attention has been devoted to studies of diol epoxide-nucleic acid interactions in aqueous model systems. The most widely studied reactive intermediate is benzo(a)pyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide (BaPDE), which is the ultimate biologically active metabolite of the well known and ubiquitous environmental pollutant benzo(a)pyrene. There are four different stereoisomers of BaPDE (Figure 1) which are characterized by differences in biological activities, and reactivities with DNA (2-4). In this review, emphasis is placed on studies of reaction mechanisms of BPDE and related compounds with DNA, and the structures of the adducts formed. 

The existence of isomeric polycyclic aromatic diol epoxide compounds provides rich opportunities for attempting to correlate biological activities with the physico-chemical reaction mechanisms, and conformational and biochemical properties of the covalent DNA adduct8 which are formed. 

It seems very probable that the epoxidation reaction proceeds through a two-stage mechanism. Hydroperoxide oxidizes the catalyst to peroxo complex and the this complex performs epoxidation of olefins. 

Fig. 16. Proposed reaction mechanism for the olefin ketonation and epoxidation catalyzed by platinum-blues.

Despite of the common reaction mechanism, peroxo complexes exhibit very different reactivities - as shown by the calculated activation energies -depending on the particular structure (nature of the metal center, peroxo or hydroperoxo functionalities, type and number of ligands). We proposed a model [72, 80] that is able to qualitatively rationalize differences in the epoxidation activities of a series of structurally similar TM peroxo compounds CH3Re(02)20-L with various Lewis base ligands L. In this model the calculated activation barriers of direct oxygen transfer from a peroxo group... 

The direct attack of the front-oxygen peroxo center yields the lowest activation barrier for all species considered. Due to repulsion of ethene from the complexes we failed [61] to localize intermediates with the olefin precoordinated to the metal center, proposed as a necessary first step of the epoxidation reaction via the insertion mechanism. Recently, Deubel et al. were able to find a local minimum corresponding to ethene coordinated to the complex MoO(02)2 OPH3 however, the formation of such an intermediate from isolated reagents was calculated to be endothermic [63, 64], The activation barriers for ethene insertion into an M-0 bond leading to the five-membered metallacycle intermediate are at least 5 kcal/mol higher than those of a direct front-side attack [61]. Moreover, the metallacycle intermediate leads to an aldehyde instead of an epoxide [63]. Based on these calculated data, the insertion mechanism of ethene epoxidation by d° TM peroxides can be ruled out. 

An important improvement in the catalysis of olefin epoxidation arose with the discovery of methyltrioxorhenium (MTO) and its derivatives as efficient catalysts for olefin epoxidation by Herrmann and coworkers [16-18]. Since then a broad variety of substituted olefins has been successfully used as substrates [103] and the reaction mechanism was studied theoretically [67, 68, 80]. 

The computational results show that transition structures derived from hydroperoxo Re complexes lie slightly higher in energy than those obtained for the corresponding peroxo complexes, nevertheless their involvement in the epoxidation reaction cannot be excluded. However, for neither MoVI nor Revn evidence Get alone preference) for hydroperoxo reaction pathways is as clear as for TiIV complexes. Of course, more complex mechanisms involving intermolecular proton transfer and/or hydrogen bonded intermediates may change this picture to some extent. 

Two molecules of carbon monoxide were successively incorporated into an epoxide in the presence of a cobalt catalyst and a phase transfer agent [29]. When styrene oxide was treated with carbon monoxide (0.1 MPa), excess methyl iodide, NaOH (0.50 M), and catalytic amounts of Co2(CO)8 and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide in benzene, 3-hydroxy-4-phenyl-2(5H)-furanone was produced in 65% yield (Scheme 7). A possible reaction mechanism was proposed as shown in Scheme 8 Addition of an in situ... 

A critical input in unraveling the catalytic mechanism of epoxide hydrolases has come from the identification of essential residues by a variety of techniques such as analysis of amino acid sequence relationships with other hydrolases, functional studies of site-directed mutated enzymes, and X-ray protein crystallography (e.g., [48][53][68 - 74]). As schematized in Fig. 10.6, the reaction mechanism of microsomal EH and cytosolic EH involves a catalytic triad consisting of a nucleophile, a general base, and a charge relay acid, in close analogy to many other hydrolases (see Chapt. 3). 

Epoxides can react with alcohols via acidic or basic catalysed reaction mechanisms. However, since both strong acids and bases will degrade the cell wall polymers of wood, the reaction is usually catalysed via the use of amines, which are more strongly nucleophilic than the OH group. For example, whereas the production of epoxy-phenolic resins requires temperatures in the region of 180-205 °C, reaction between epoxides and primary or secondary amines takes place at 15 °C (Turner, 1967). Reaction of epoxides with wood often involves the use of tertiary amines as catalysts (Sherman etal., 1980). The sapwood is more reactive towards epoxides than heartwood (Ahmad and Harun, 1992). 

The mechanism by which the hydroperoxide intermediate, (42) (Scheme 29) is converted into the products of Scheme 28 is not clear. The follow-up reaction of (42) may be diverted by reaction with an enone that undergoes epoxidation in 85 to 90% yield. Scheme 29, [121]. The epoxidation reaction does not take place directly from O2 and 02 but requires the formation of an intermediate of type (42) derived either from the enone or from an external carbon acid as in Scheme 29. Yields are considerably improved using an external carbon acid since the Michael addition between the enone and its anion otherwise competes with the epoxidation. For... 

Kirk DN, Hartshorn MP (1968) Rearrangement of epoxides. In Steroid reaction mechanisms. Elsevier, Amsterdam, p 353... 

RuClj(Hcbx)(cbx) (Hcbx=A-2 -chlorophenyl-2-pyridine-carboxamide). This red-brown material is made from the ligand and RuClj, and its X-ray crystal structure determined (Fig. 1.36). The system RuCl2(Hcbx)(cbx)/Oj/M( butyraldehyde/DCE epoxidised a number of cyclic alkenes efficiently at room temperatures (Table 3.1). Addition of the radical trap 2,6-di-ferf-butyl-4-methylphenol stopped epoxidation reactions altogether, suggesting that a mechanism involving radicals is involved [801],... 

SCHEME 55. Proposed reaction mechanism for the zinc-mediated asymmetric epoxidation of a, 6-enones... 

SCHEME 94. Reaction mechanism for the MTO-catalyzed epoxidation by H2O2... 

These complexes are effective catalysts in epoxidation reactions with H2O2 and alkyl hydroperoxides. Several detailed mechanistic studies have been carried out in particular, it has been shown that, when the alkyl chain contains a double bond, no autoepoxidation is observed both in the solid state and in solution. Nevertheless, if f-BuOOH is added, the epoxidation of the olefinic moiety immediately takes place. Therefore, it has been suggested that these complexes are not the active species in the oxygen transfer step to the substrate, but they behave as catalysts for the primary peroxidic oxidant. On the basis of kinetic, spectroscopic and theoretical studies, the authors provided a mechanism, whose key steps are sketched in Scheme 12. In this context a major role appears to be played by the fluxionality of the particular ligands used . ... 

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