Friedel-Crafts alkylation hydrogen-bonding

Figure 6.46 (A) Hydroxy-protected thiourea 141 and 142 lacking the hydroxy function and their catalytic efficiency in the Friedel-Crafts alkylation of indole with frans-P-nitrostyrene (139 78% yield 85% ee under identical conditions). (B) Proposal for the key hydrogen-bonding interactions between 139 and the model substrates.

As we have already shown, the creation of novel carbon-carbon bonds usually results in the formation of functionalized derivatives (the Wurtz coupling and Friedel-Crafts alkylation are probably the only exceptions). That is why a set of special reductive methods was devised to remove residual functionality that is unwanted in the final structure. The well-known hydrogenation of alkenes and alkynes belongs to this group of non-isohypsic transformations. Several other pathways available for the reductive removal of various functions will briefly be considered below. 

Electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions are a very important class of chemical reactions that allow the introduction of substituents on to arenes by replacing a hydrogen atom covalently bonded to the aromatic ring structure by an electrophile. The most common reactions of this type are aromatic nitrations, halogenations, Friedel-Crafts alkylations and acylations, formylations, sulfonations, azo couplings and carboxylations - to name just a few. 

Ricci et al studied a series of thiourea catalysts for the Friedel-Crafts alkylation of aromatic and heteroaromatic compounds with nitroalkenes. They have succeeded in developing the Friedel-Crafts alkylation of indoles with nitroalkenes for the first time by means of a novel thiourea catalyst (13) (Scheme 2.48) [101]. The authors proposed the bifunctional nature of the thiourea catalyst, where thiourea activates the nitro group and at the same time the free alcoholic function interacts with the indole proton through a weak hydrogen bond, directing the attack of the incoming nucleophile on the Si face of the nitroalkene (Figure 2.18). 

On the other hand, Lee showed that 28 could activate N-sulfonyl imines through hydrogen-bonding interaction and could function as an efficient Br0nsted acid catalyst for the highly enantioselective Friedel-Crafts alkylation of indoles with the imines (Scheme 7.55) [83]. It was essential to wash the catalyst with dilute hydrochloric acid followed by water and brine prior to use to attain sufficient reactivity. 

The opposite of the stabilisation of an ester is its activation. If we include in the concept ester the alkyl halides, their Friedel-Crafts reactions provide familiar examples of this phenomenon. An unusual example especially relevant to our present considerations is provided by some results made available to me in advance of publication by Giusti and Andruzzi. Their results [38] on the polymerisation of styrene by iodine and hydrogen iodide can be interpreted in terms of an organic iodide derived from styrene, probably 1-phenylethyl iodide, being activated by the co-ordination of one or two molecules of iodine. This process appears to polarise the C—I bond to such an extent that the normally stable ester becomes activated to a chain-propagating species and induces a pseudocationic polymerisation ... 

Many organic chemical transformations have been carried out in ionic hquids hydrogenation [4, 5], oxidation [6], epoxidation [7], and hydroformylation [8] reactions, for example. In addition to these processes, numerous synthetic routes involve a carbon-carbon (C-C) bond-forming step. As a result, many C-C bondforming procedures have been studied in ambient-temperature ionic Hquids. Among those reported are the Friedel-Crafts acylation [9] and alkylation [10] reactions, allylation reactions [11, 12], the Diels-Alder reaction [13], the Heck reaction [14], and the Suzuki [15] and Trost-Tsuji coupHng [16] reactions. 

Besides the addition of such reagents as halogens, hydrogen halides, or the hypohalous acids, there are other reactions which appear to proceed through addition mechanisms, but the exact course of the process is sometimes considerably obscured. The Friedel-Crafts addition of alkyl halides to olefins (p. 145), the self-condensation of olefins, and the alkylation of isoparaffins are examples in which attack at the double bond seems to be led by a carbonium ion. 

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