Formamide, free radical addition

Free radical additions to mono-olefins are quite common and can frequently be employed to advantage on a synthetic scale. Formamide, for example, on exposure to sunlight or UV radiation adds to olefins in an anti-Markovnikov sense giving 1 1 adducts that are readily isolated and crystallized. Moreover, since alkyl formamides may be conveniently converted to carboxylic acids by conventional means, the reaction represents a general method of chain extension. 

Aldehydes, formates, primary, and secondary alcohols, amines, ethers, alkyl halides, compounds of the type Z—CH2—Z, and a few other compounds add to double bonds in the presence of free-radical initiators/ This is formally the addition of RH to a double bond, but the R is not just any carbon but one connected to an oxygen or a nitrogen, a halogen, or to two Z groups (defined as on p. 548). The addition of aldehydes is illustrated above. Formates and formamides " add similarly ... 

In the photoaddition of 2-pyrrolidone the 5-alkyl isomer (69) always predominates, usually in a ratio of 2 1. The formation of anti-Markovnikov 1 1 adducts, telomers, and dehydrodimers of structure (71) supports a free radical mechanism. Similarly, formamide undergoes olefin addition under... 

Since it has been observed that the hydrogen atoms attached to nitrogen in amines were not easily abstractable in free radical reactions (6, 74), it may be assumed that the aldehydic part of the formamide molecule will be more reactive in the photoaddition reactions than the amino function, thus leading to the following addition reaction with terminal olefins,... 

The photoreaction of cyclohexene with carbonyl compounds showed that attack at the allylic position of the cyclohexene molecule as well as addition to the double bond occurred (7). An attack at the allylic position of this compound is common in free radical reactions. It is therefore noteworthy that in the reaction of cyclohexene with formamide only addition products of formamide to cyclohexene were detected under these reaction conditions (i.e. temperature and concentrations of the various reagents employed). The concentration of the various reagents, or the facile addition step of the carbamoyl radical towards double bonds may account for these results. 

Since the addition of formamide to olefins is induced photochemically as well as by peroxides at elevated temperatures, it may be safe to assume that we deal here with a free radical reaction. Let us apply this assumption to interpret the results. A reasonable free radical derived from formamide would be a carbamoyl radical CONH2 which can be formed by loss of a hydrogen atom from formamide. Experimental data show that irradiation of formamide in the presence of acetone and in the absence of an olefin leads to the formation of considerable amounts of oxamide. 

In fact, alkylated succinamides were isolated in some cases, though in very poor yields, and result from radical combination, which is a chain termination step. The experimental observations, i.e. the formation of (a) 1 1 adducts, (b) telomeric products, (c) alkylated succinamides, and (d) oxamide (when an olefin is absent), are consistent with a free radical mechanism. The telomeric products obtained support the assumption that we deal here with a chain reaction, because they are characteristic products of this type of reaction. Another proof for the chain reaction mechanism is the fact that when benzophenone is used as a photoinitiator (vide infra), the amount of benzpinacol formed is smaller than the amount of the 1 1 addition product of formamide and olefin (16). Quantum yield determinations will supply extra evidence for the validity of a chain reaction mechanism for this photoaddition reaction. 

The free radical chain-mechanism propose for the addition of formamide to isolated double bonds can be extended to include the present case as well. The carbamoyl radical involved adds to the double bond of norbomene from the less hindered exo side leading to the exo isomer exclusively,... 

The benzylic free radical produced by the addition of the carbamoyl radical to the ethyl cinnamate molecule is more stable than the alternative radical alpha to the ester group. With such an orientation of addition to the a,p-unsaturated ester, this reaction should lead to derivatives of malonic acid. However, it has been found that the intermediate radical, being a stable benzylic free radical, fails to perform the subsequent abstraction of a hydrogen atom from formamide, and thus no chain-transfer step takes place. Instead of performing this step it favours the combination with a semi-pinacol radical, which is present in solution, to yield the hydroxy ester which subsequently lactonizes to give the major product of the reaction (67). 

PA anion radical rapidly reduced 4-bromobiphenyl (4-BB) to biphenyl in 0.1 H CTAB with an enhanced rate compared to isotropic solvent (Table 1). Quantitative bulk electrolytic reduction of 0.02 mmol of 4-BB in 25 mb 0.1 M CTAB was effected on stirred mercury pool electrodes in 2.5 h with 20 % decomposition of the catalyst. Time for complete conversion to biphenyl and amount of catalyst decomposed were significantly smaller compared to similar experiments in surfactant-free N,N-dimethyl-formamide (DMF) . Diffusion controlled CV and chronocoulometric data for 0.2 mM 9-PA in 0.1 H CTAB were used to obtain an apparent diffusion coefficient (D ) of lO cm s-. This is much too large to attribute to a diffusing micelle-bound species. Furthermore, at scan rates (v) below 5 mV s i, CV s for the 9-PA anion radical were not diffusion controlled as at higher v, but had a symmetric peak shape attributable to a thick surfactant layer at the surface of the electrode. Thus, at the potential required (-2.2 V vs SCE) to reduce 9-PA in 0.1 M CTAB, the catalytic reduction of 4-BB takes place in a thick, spontaneously organized surfactant film on the electrode surface. In addition to voltammetric results , support for existence of a thick film comes from differential capacitance, ellipsometry , and reflectance infrared spectroscopy . 

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