Esters, carboxylic acid nucleophilic substitution

Esters undergo the nucleophilic substitution that is typical of carboxylic acid derivatives. Attack occurs at the electron-deficient carbonyl carbon, and results in the replacement of the —OR group by —OH, —OR ", or —NH2 ... 

Microwave radiation can be used in the synthesis of alkyl azides. The microwave-assisted synthesis of j8- and 7-azidoarylketones 89 from haloaryUcetones 88 and NaNs leads to acceleration in reaction rates and yields comparable to the ones using conventional heating. The microwave-enhanced nucleophilic substitution approach to alkyl azides (91, 93 and 95) in aqueous medium from halides or tosylates and NaN3 is also known. The authors observed that a variety of reactive functional groups are tolerated, namely ester, carboxylic acid and imide (Scheme 3.12). 

Conversions of acid anhydrides to other carboxylic acid derivatives are illustrated m Table 20 2 Because a more highly stabilized carbonyl group must result m order for nucleophilic acyl substitution to be effective acid anhydrides are readily converted to carboxylic acids esters and amides but not to acyl chlorides... 

Step 1 The Boc protected amino acid is anchored to the resin Nucleophilic substitution of the benzylic chloride by the carboxylate anion gives an ester... 

Pyrazine, tetrahydro-, 3, 177, 178 Pyrazine, 1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-synthesis, 3, 177 Pyrazine, 2,3,5-tri-t-butyl-synthesis, 3, 185 Pyrazine, 2,3,5-trichloro-nucleophilic substitution, 3, 176 Pyrazine, 2-vinyl-polymers, 1, 290-291 Pyrazine-3-carboxylic acid, 2-amino-methyl ester... 

Esters can also be synthesized by an acid-catalyzed nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction of a carboxylic acid with an alcohol, a process called the Fischer esterification reaction. Unfortunately, the need to use an excess of a liquid alcohol as solvent effectively limits the method to the synthesis of methyl, ethyl, propyl, and butyl esters. 

Acid halides are among the most reactive of carboxylic acid derivatives and can be converted into many other kinds of compounds by nucleophilic acyl substitution mechanisms. The halogen can be replaced by -OH to yield an acid, by —OCOR to yield an anhydride, by -OR to yield an ester, or by -NH2 to yield an amide. In addition, the reduction of an acid halide yields a primary alcohol, and reaction with a Grignard reagent yields a tertiary alcohol. Although the reactions we ll be discussing in this section are illustrated only for acid chlorides, similar processes take place with other acid halides. 

Lster hydrolysis occurs through a typical nucleophilic acyl substitution pathway in which hydroxide ion is the nucleophile that adds to the ester carbonyl group to give a tetrahedral intermediate. Loss of alkoxide ion then gives a carboxylic acid, which is deprotonated to give the carboxylate ion. Addition of aqueous HC1 in a separate step after the saponification is complete then pro-tonates the carboxylate ion and gives the carboxylic acid (Figure 21.17). 

Fischer esterification reaction (Section 21.3) The acid-catalyzed nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction of a carboxylic acid with an alcohol to yield an ester. 

Hydroxy-L-prolin is converted into a 2-methoxypyrrolidine. This can be used as a valuable chiral building block to prepare optically active 2-substituted pyrrolidines (2-allyl, 2-cyano, 2-phosphono) with different nucleophiles and employing TiQ as Lewis acid (Eq. 21) [286]. Using these latent A -acylimmonium cations (Eq. 22) [287] (Table 9, No. 31), 2-(pyrimidin-l-yl)-2-amino acids [288], and 5-fluorouracil derivatives [289] have been prepared. For the synthesis of p-lactams a 4-acetoxyazetidinone, prepared by non-Kolbe electrolysis of the corresponding 4-carboxy derivative (Eq. 23) [290], proved to be a valuable intermediate. 0-Benzoylated a-hydroxyacetic acids are decarboxylated in methanol to mixed acylals [291]. By reaction of the intermediate cation, with the carboxylic acid used as precursor, esters are obtained in acetonitrile (Eq. 24) [292] and surprisingly also in methanol as solvent (Table 9, No. 32). Hydroxy compounds are formed by decarboxylation in water or in dimethyl sulfoxide (Table 9, Nos. 34, 35). 

The oxidation of aldehydes to carboxylic acids can proceed by a nucleophilic mechanism, but more often it does not. The reaction is considered in Chapter 14 (14-6). Basic cleavage of (3-keto esters and the haloform reaction could be considered at this point, but they are also electrophilic substitutions and are treated in Chapter 12 (12-41 and 12-42). 

Nucleophilic substitutions of 0-activated 2-hydroxy carboxylic acids and esters, respectively, are well established, but little is known about the analogous reactions of activated cyanohydrins. Chiral 2-sulfonyloxynitriles, accessible from non-racemic cyanohydrins, have a relatively high configurational stability. They react with nucleophiles under very mild conditions under inversion of configuration (Scheme 8). ° ... 

Alternatively, esterification of carboxylic acid can be carried out in aqueous media by reacting carboxylic acid salts with alkyl halides through nucleophilic substitutions (Eq. 9.10).20 The reaction rate of alkyl halides with alkali metal salts of carboxylic acids to give esters increases with the increasing concentration of catalyst, halide, and solvent polarity and is reduced by water. Various thymyl ethers and esters can be synthesized by the reactions of thymol with alkyl halides and acid chlorides, respectively, in aqueous medium under microwave irradiation (Eq. 9.11).21 Such an esterification reaction of poly(methacrylic acid) can be performed readily with alkyl halides using DBU in aqueous solutions, although the rate of the reaction decreases with increasing water content.22... 

The most characteristic and useful reaction is the dimerization with incorporation of certain nucleophiles. It is well-known that simple olefins coordinated by Pd2+ compounds undergo nucleophilic substitutions [Eq. (9)] or addition reactions [Eq. (10)] (16, 17). Water, alcohols, and carboxylic acids are typical nucleophiles which attack olefins to form aldehydes, ketones, vinyl ethers, and vinyl esters. 

Oxidation is the first step for producing molecules with a very wide range of functional groups because oxygenated compounds are precursors to many other products. For example, alcohols may be converted to ethers, esters, alkenes, and, via nucleophilic substitution, to halogenated or amine products. Ketones and aldehydes may be used in condensation reactions to form new C-C double bonds, epoxides may be ring opened to form diols and polymers, and, finally, carboxylic acids are routinely converted to esters, amides, acid chlorides and acid anhydrides. Oxidation reactions are some of the largest scale industrial processes in synthetic chemistry, and the production of alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, epoxides and carboxylic acids is performed on a mammoth scale. For example, world production of ethylene oxide is estimated at 58 million tonnes, 2 million tonnes of adipic acid are made, mainly as a precursor in the synthesis of nylons, and 8 million tonnes of terephthalic acid are produced each year, mainly for the production of polyethylene terephthalate) [1]. 

Reactions of O2 with esters R C(0)0R also pass nucleophilic substitution as an initial step (Sawyer and Gibian 1979). Final products are acyl peroxides or carboxylic acids. The following set of equations explains the product formation ... 

In the initial step, the first BOC-protected amino acid is bound to the polymer, e.g. polystyrene in which a proportion of the phenyl rings have chloromethyl substitution. Attachment to these residues is through the carboxyl via an ester linkage. This involves a simple nucleophilic substitution reaction, with the carboxylate as nucleophile and chloride as leaving group (see Section 6.3.2). After each stage, the insoluble polymer-product combination is washed free of impurities. 

Very important compounds are the carboxylic acids and their derivatives, which can be formally obtained by exchanging the OH group for another group. In fact, derivatives of this type are formed by nucleophilic substitutions of activated intermediate compounds and the release of water (see p. 14). Carboxylic acid esters (R-O-CO-R ) arise from carboxylic acids and alcohols. This group includes the fats, for example (see p.48). Similarly, a carboxylic acid and a thiol yield a thioester (R-S-CO-R ). Thioesters play an extremely important role in carboxylic acid metabolism. The best-known compound of this type is acetyl-coenzyme A (see p. 12). 

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