Esters, acetylenic, reduction

A range of 1 1 adducts together with an acetylene reduction product is formed when 3-phenyl-4-phenylethynylcyclobut-3-en-tra/u-l,2-dicarboxylic acid dimethyl ester is irradiated in methanol.Evidence is presented to show that the... 

Methyl trichloroacetate reacts with olefins in the presence of transition-metal catalysts to give mixtures of the corresponding butyrate and y-butyrol-actone. Substituted y-butyrolactones are produced in the radiation-induced addition of alcohols or the electrochemical reductive addition of acetone to a/3-unsaturated esters. Acetylenic Grignard reagents react with y-lactones to give products of double addition, whereas the analogous lithium salts react only once. The products observed in the pyrolysis of y-lactone toluene-/ -sulphonylhydrazone sodium salts can be accounted for by the intermediacy of an oxycarbene. ... 

Palladium catalyst foe partial ee DUCTION OF ACETYLENES, 46, 89 Palladium on charcoal, catalyst for reductive methylation of ethyl p-mtrophenylacetate, 47, 69 in reduction of l butyl azidoacetate to glycine J-butyl ester 4B, 47 Palladium oxide as catalyst for reduction of sodium 2 nitrobenzene sulfinate, 47, S... 

Feoktistov and coworkers 57) found a third mode of reactivity in a closely related system. The electrochemical reduction of the diethyl esters of dichloro-maleic (56) and dichlorofumaric (57) acid was studied. Neither afforded the corresponding acetylene. 

Conjugate reductions. This combination (usually 1 3 ratio) effects conjugate reduction of a,p-acetylenic ketones or esters to a, 3-enones or unsaturated esters at -50° with moderate (E)-selectivity. The HMPT is believed to function as a ligand to aluminum and thus to promote hydroalumination to give a vinylaluminum intermediate, which can be trapped by an allylic bromide (equation I).1 The re-... 

Chromium(II) sulfate is a versatile reagent for the mild reduction of a variety of bonds. Thus aqueous dimethylformamide solutions of this reagent at room temperature couple benzylic halides, reduce aliphatic monohalides to alkanes, convert vicinal dihalides to olefins, convert geminal halides to carben-oids, reduce acetylenes to /raw5-olefins, and reduce a,j3-unsatu-rated esters, acids, and nitriles to the corresponding saturated derivatives. These conditions also reduce aldehydes to alcohols. The reduction of diethyl fumarate described in this preparation illustrates the mildness of the reaction conditions for the reduction of acetylenes and o ,j8-unsaturated esters, acids, and nitriles. 

Thus, the (R)-glycidol (R)-897 was transformed to ethyl (S)-6-benzyloxy-3-methyl-4(E)-hexenoate (S)-899 via addition of acetylide followed by spontaneous isomerization, stereoselective reduction, and Claisen-Johnson rearrangement. The chiral ester (S)-899 was converted to (R)-4-methyl-6-phenylthiohexanol (R)-902. The primary alcohol (R)-902 was then transformed to the terminal acetylene (R)-904, a common intermediate for the synthesis of carbazoquinocins A (272) and D (275). Chain elongation of (R)-904 by two carbon atoms led to (R)-905, the chiral precursor for carbazoquinocin D (275) (639) (Scheme 5.116). 

Kleinman and co-workers 20 synthesized a lactone precursor to the (2/ ,46, 56 )- -hydroxy-ethylene dipeptide stereoselectively in four steps using the lithium salt of ethyl propiolate as a homoenolate equivalent. As summarized in Scheme 11, addition of ethyl lithiopropiolate to a protected a-amino aldehyde affords hydroxy acetylenic esters as a mixture of dia-stereomers. Reduction of the acetylene group and subsequent lactonization gives a readily separable (4S)-lactone-enriched mixture. Direct alkylation with alkyl halide and lithium hexamethyldisilanazide yields the tram-lactone as the major stereoisomer. 

The last factor often is the one that determines the reaction rates of [4+2]-cycloadditions. This factor allows one to understand, for example, why the cycloadditions of ethene or acetylene with butadiene (cf. Figure 15.1) occur only under rather drastic conditions, while the analogous cycloadditions of tetracyanoethene or acetylenedicarboxylic acid esters are relatively rapid. As will be seen, a simple orbital interaction between the reagents at the sites where the new a bonds are formed is responsible for this advantageous reduction of the activation energies of the latter two reactions. 

Despite the chemical diversity of the several hundred structures representing herbicidal activity, most reactions of herbicides fall within only a limited number of mechanistic types oxidation, reduction, nucleophilic displacements (such as hydrolysis), eliminations, and additions. "Herbicides", after all, are more-or-less ordinary chemicals, and their principal transformations in the environment are fundamentally no different from those in laboratory glassware. Figure 2 illustrates three typical examples which have received their share of classical laboratory study—the alkaline hydrolysis of a carboxylic ester (in this case, an ester of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, IX), the cycloaddition of an alcohol to an olefin (as in the acetylene, VI), and the 3-elimination of a dithiocarbamate which provides the usual synthetic route to an isothiocyanate (conversion of an N.N-dimethylcarbamic acid salt, XI, to methyl isothiocyanate). Allow the starting materials herbicidal action (which they have), give them names such as "2,4-D ester" or "pronamide" or "Vapam", and let soil form the walls of an outdoor reaction kettle the reactions and products remain the same. 

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