Fragmentation Buchner reaction

Substrate-controlled stereoselective dearomatizations provide cycloheptatriene derivatives in high diastereomeric excess, and the reaction has been used to prepare 7-membered ring systems found in several natural products. Scheme 15.27a illustrates the Rh(II)-catalyzed conversion of diazo derivative 72 to polycyclic cycloheptatriene 73, which was subsequently converted to har-ringtonolide [78]. Note that the initial cycloheptatriene product of the Buchner reaction is converted to a more stable isomer by the action of DBU. In some instances, intramolecular Buchner reactions afford norcaradiene products that are not in equilibrium with the corresponding cycloheptatrienes. These examples arise as a consequence of conformational constraints inherent in the substrates. Cu-catalyzed Buchner reactions have been anployed to access derivatives of stable norcaradiene fragments found in several natural products (e.g., gibberellin GA j and (-r)-salvileucalin B, Scheme 15.27b and c, respectively) [79]. 

Place 18 g. (12 ml.) of fuming nitric acid, sp. gr. 1 5, and 30 g. (16-5 ml.) of concentrated sulphuric acid and a few fragments of broken glass in a 250 or 500 ml. round-bottomed flask. Add gradually, in small portions, 14 g. of p-nitrotoluene do not allow the temperature to rise above 50 and cool the flask, if necessary, by immersion in cold water. Place a small funnel in the mouth of the flask and heat on a water bath at 90-95° for 30 minutes. Allow to cool almost to the laboratory temperature and pour the reaction mixture slowly into about 500 ml. of ice water containing a few small pieces of ice. Filter the crude dinitrotoluene through a Buchner funnel at the pump, wash it thoroughly with cold water, and drain as completely as possible. RecrystalUse from the minimum volume of hot methyl alcohol (flask, reflux condenser, and water bath experimental details as in Section IV,12). The yield of pure 2 4-dinitrotoluene, m.p. 71°, is 12 -5 g. 

In 1878, the "fragments" identified by Pasteur were named enzymes by the German physiologist Wilhelm Kuhne. In 1897, Eduard Buchner, a German chemist, accidentally discovered that a yeast juice could convert sucrose to ethanol. He was able to show that the sugar was fermented even in the absence of living yeast cells in the mixture, and named the factor responsible for the fermentation of sucrose zymase. In 1907, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The 40 years of biochemical research that followed yielded the details of the chemical reactions of fermentation. 

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