Fluorenide salts

A single sulfonium ylide is beUeved to be formed as alkylation of oxathiane 3a gave the equatorial sulfonium salt exclusively [29]. Ylide conformation has been studied by X-ray, NMR, and computation [30]. All of these studies indicate that the preferred conformation of sulfur yUdes is one in which the filled orbital on the ylide carbon is orthogonal to the lone pair on sulfur. The barrier to rotation around the C-S bond of the semi-stabilized ylide, dimethylsulfonium fluorenide, has been found to be 42 1.0 kJmol [30]. This impHes that the ylide will adopt conformations 6a and 6b and that these will be in rapid equilibrium at room temperature. Of these two, conformation 6b will be favored as 6a suffers from... 

Indene and fluorene (benzo- and dibenzo-cyclopentadiene) also have acidic methylene groups and can be converted into metal indenides and fluorenides respectively. A tetramethylammonium salt of fluorene has also been prepared [47]. It is an orange compound which remains unchanged when kept under nitrogen, and decomposes to give fluorene and 9-methylfluorene when heated in ether. Annelation reduces the acidity of the cyclopentadiene ring, however [48]. This infers reduced stabilisation of the cyclopentadienide anion relative to the... 

There are undoubtedly many early examples of the phenomenon now known as phase transfer catalysis and a presentation of all of them is neither valuable nor feasible. Some of the early work does merit presentation, however, if only to provide a sense of perspective on the field. Wittig and coworkers demonstrated in 1947 the value of utilizing tetramethylammonium cations paired with trityl and fluorenide ions for alkylation in dry alcohol solution [1 ]. Jarrousse found that cyclohexanol and phenyl-acetonitrile could both be alkylated in a two phase system and the catalytic effect of quaternary ammonium salts was clearly recognized (see Eqs. 1.1 and 1.2) [2] Sarrett, in his classic cortisone synthesis, found that either Triton B or the Mannich base... 

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