Friedel-Crafts reaction decarbonylation

Sometimes acylium ions lose carbon monoxide to generate an ordinary carbonium ion. It will be recalled that free acyl radicals exhibit similar behavior at high temperatures. Whether or not the loss of carbon monoxide takes place seems to depend on the stability of the resulting carbonium ion and on the speed with which the acylium ion is removed by competing reactions. Thus no decarbonylation is observed in Friedel-Crafts reactions of benzoyl chloride, the phenyl cation being rather unstable. But attempts to make pivaloyl benzene by the Friedel-Crafts reaction produce tert-butyl benzene instead. With compound XLIV cyclization competes with decarbonylation, but this competition is not successful in the case of compound XLV in which the ring is deactivated.263... 

The reaction of various A-tosylated a-amino acids (94) with benzene in concentrated sulfuric acid yielded diphenyl derivatives (95)." The mechanism proposed for the reaction (Scheme 9) involves initial protonation of the carboxyl group to give (96), which suffers decarbonylation to the A-tosyliminium salt (97). This reactive electrophile (97) interacts with benzene to give a monophenyl compound (98) which, via a Friedel-Crafts reaction, interacts with another molecule of benzene to yield the diphenyl compound (95)." Toluene and p-xylene reacted analogously to yield diarylated products. 

This alternative to the Friedel-Crafts reaction, extensively developed by Stille and coworkers, is particularly important, since the reaction conditions are essentially neutral, and so provides a method for acylation of compounds containing an acid-sensitive functionality which would preclude the use of the Friedel-Crafts reaction. Reaction temperatures are often below 100 C, and high (1000-fold) turnovers of the catalyst have been achieved. Solvents employed include chloroform, toluene, and, on occasions, HMPA. Some reactions have been carried out under an atmosphere of carbon monoxide to prevent excessive decarbonylation of the acyl palladium intermediate. Indeed, carbonylative coupling of alkenylstannanes with allyl halides in the presence of carbon monoxide ca. 3 atm or greater 1 atm =101 kPa) offers an alternative to the Friedel-Crafts acylation, ketones being formed by the reaction of the stannane with the acyl species formed by carbon monoxide insertion into the allyl palladium intermediate. ... 

Nitrobenzene was used as solvent in an investigation as it is frequently used in Friedel-Crafts reactions and facilitates the solubility of aluminum chloride. However, nitrobenzene may inhibit the formylation reaction as the polar NO2 group competes with CO in the protonation reaction (CHO ), resulting in low or no reactivity. Another possible reason for the apparent unreactivity of phenol under these conditions was proposed by Olah ° and involves the formation of phenyl formate (0-formylation of phenol). These compounds decarbonylate easily, instead of undergoing acid catalysed Fries rearrangement to the aldehyde [Eq (2.13)]. 

Drawbacks as known from the Friedel-Crafts alkylation are not found for the Friedel-Crafts acylation. In some cases a decarbonylation may be observed as a side-reaction, e.g. if loss of CO from the acylium ion will lead to a stable carbenium species 8. The reaction product of the attempted acylation will then be rather an alkylated aromatic compound 9 ... 

An intermediate acylnickel halide is first formed by oxidative addition of acyl halides to zero-valent nickel. This intermediate can attack unsaturated ligands with subsequent proton attack from water. It can give rise to benzyl- or benzoin-type coupling products, partially decarbonylate to give ketones, or react with organic halides to give ketones as well. Protonation of certain complexes can give aldehydes. Nickel chloride also acts as catalyst for Friedel-Crafts-type reactions. 

Cyclopropene and its deuterium-labelled derivatives can be obtained by the photo-decarbonylation of the corresponding furan at 254 nm but the method is of strictly limited value because of the photolability of many cyclopropenes (Section IV.B.2). West and his coworkers have shown that aryltrihalo- and diaryldihalocyclopropenes are available from classical Friedel-Crafts aromatic substitution reactions employing the cyclopropenyl cation as electrophile. Thus tetrachlorocyclopropene is converted to its derived cation which is then allowed to react with an aromatic compound. The exothermic reaction provides monoarylcyclopropene at low ( 0°C) temperature and the diaryl derivative at higher ( > 50° C) temperature (equation 26). In this way 2-phenyl-1,3,3-trichlorocyclopropene can be obtained in 58 % yield and the p-fluorophenyl analogue in... 

Intermediates analogous to the carboxonium salt formulated in the preceding example are also formed during Friedel-Crafts acylations and these can undergo decarbonylation, so that reaction of an aromatic compound with an acid chloride may result in alkylation instead of acylation for example,... 

A related approach involves the direct decarbonylation of stable ketones. DauguUs and Brookhart demonstrated that the rhodium-catalyzed decarbonylation of diaryl ketones was feasible [11]. Efficient extrusion of CO from alkyl aryl ketones to form alkylarenes was easily achieved by rhodium(I) catalysis directed by apyridyl ortho to the RCO group (Scheme 22.6) [12]. (CO)2Rh(acac) was found to be the optimal catalyst and the methodology had a broad substrate scope. This method offers an alternative way to synthesize alkyl benzenes through an ARCIS reaction, complementary to the known Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction of arenes. 

The above route also proved to be economically less viable, therefore, we decided to use the commercially available p-amino phenol to carry out a similar set of reactions. p-Amino phenol was condensed with dimethoxy tetrahydrofuran to obtain the i -aryl pynole 41. The phenol 42 was converted to the acetate and that was subjected to die Vilsmeier/Friedel-Crafts acylation conditions to obtain the aldehyde 43. Decarbonylation of the aldehyde followed by Wolff-Kishner reduction and esterification resulted in the formation of con imd 45. Similar results were obtained starting with p-anisidine. In this case demethylation was carried out using boron tribromide. The phenolic group... 

---