From furans

Radicals derived from furan are named similarly to analogous radicals in the ben2ene series. Typical radicals are 2 (or a)-furyl (5), 2-furfuryl (6), 2-furoyl (7), and 2-furfur5hdene (8) ... 

Uses. Furfural is primarily a chemical feedstock for a number of monomeric compounds and resins. One route produces furan by decarbonylation. Tetrahydrofuran is derived from furan by hydrogenation. Polytetramethylene ether glycol [25190-06-1] is manufactured from tetrahydrofuran by a ring opening polymeri2ation reaction. Another route (hydrogenation) produces furfuryl alcohol, tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol, 2-methylfuran, and 2-methyltetrahydrofuran. A variety of proprietary synthetic resins are manufactured from furfural and/or furfuryl alcohol. Other... 

The dianions derived from furan- and thiophene-carboxylic acids by deprotonation with LDA have been reacted with various electrophiles (Scheme 64). The oxygen dianions reacted efficiently with aldehydes and ketones but not so efficiently with alkyl halides or epoxides. The sulfur dianions reacted with allyl bromide, a reaction which failed in the case of the dianions derived from furancarboxylic acids, and are therefore judged to be the softer nucleophiles (81JCS(Pl)1125,80TL505l). 

The method described here gives higher yields of the macrocyclic tetraethers and allows the product from furan and cyclohexanone to be formed directly in 5-10% yield, whereas this product was previously obtained only by an indirect route. The added lithium perchlorate undoubtedly accelerates the reaction, since after short reaction times the product was isolated in 20% yield when the salt was present and in only 5% yield when the salt was absent. The lithium cation is presumably acting as a template which coordinates with the oxygen atoms of... 

Subsequently, Beals and Brown expanded the scope of the earlier work from their laboratory to include the tetraoxaquaterene derived from furan and 3-pentanone. Using 3,3-difurylpentane and diethyl ketone in the presence of dry hydrogen chloride gas, the all-ethyl analog of 6 (mp 249°) was obtained in 20% yield. ... 

Nitrogen heterocycles from furans by aza-Achmatovicz reaction 98SL105. 

Chemistry of conjugated heterocycles built from furan pyrrole, or thiophene ring fused with bicyclic (norbomadiene, bomene, or azanorbomene) skeletons 98YGK192. 

Thiophenes are less reactive than furans and therefore react with very reactive dienophiles. They behave somewhat differently from furans and in many cases the intermediate addition products are unstable and undergo cheleotropic extrusion of sulfur [30]. Thiophenes 30 undergo cycloaddition reactions with DMAD (Equation 2.11) to afford bicyclic cycloadducts which lead to phthal-ates by sulfur extrusion, thus offering a one-pot synthesis of dimethylphthalates [31]. 

The reaction of furan with 2,5-dihydrothiophene-3,4-dicarboxylic anhydride is remarkable (Scheme 6.19). Furan is a poor diene and requires high pressure to affect cycloadditions [39]. On the other hand, high temperatures are forbidden because cycloaddition products derived from furan undergo cycloreversion under these conditions. In 5.0m LP-DE, the Diels-Alder reaction of furan with 2,5-dihydrothiophene-3,4-dicarboxylic anhydride proceeds at room temperature and atmospheric pressure in 9.5 h with 70 % yield and with the same diastereos-electivity found when the reaction is carried out under high pressure [40]. 

Intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction of substituted fiirans has been investigated as a route to the synthesis of isoquinoline alkaloids. Tetrahydroisoquinoline 81 was prepared from furan 80 in 40% yield <95JCS(P1)2393>. 

Paired electrosynthesis of phthalide and p-fert-butyl benzaldehyde (Putter and Hannebaum, 2000) and 2,5 Dimethoxy-2,5-dihydrofuran from furan (Steckhan et al, 2000)... 

Reaction mixtures of isomeric cycloadducts from furans 87d and 87e gave, after purification by column chromatography on both silica gel and neutral alumina, mixtures of diastereomeric hydrolysed products 90 and 91 (Scheme 17) [16]. 

Acyl azides 268, derived from furan, thiophene and selenophene, add slowly at room temperature to the strained double bond of 5-methylenebicyclo[2.2.1]hept-2-ene. Two regioisomeric triazolines, 269 and 270, which form in the first step, are unstable and decompose with elimination of nitrogen to provide aziridine derivatives 271. Products 271 are isolated in good yield (73-85%). It is worthy to note that not only the terminal, unstrained double bond in the starting material, 5-methylenebicyclo[2.2.1]hept-2-ene, is unaffected, but also the typical dipolarophiles like esters of crotonic, propiolic and byt-2-ynoic acids do not react with azides 268 under these conditions (Scheme 39) <2002J(P1)1420>. 

Scheme 6.76 Generation of l-oxa-2,3-cyclohexadiene (351) from 5-bromo-3,4-dihydro-2H-pyran (376) and trapping products of351 obtained from furan, 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene, 1,1-diphenyl-ethylene, ( )-l-phenylpropene, ( )-2-butene, (Z)-2-butene and tert-butyl alcohol , according to Schlosserand co-workers.

Furan Derivatives Catalytic processes used to obtain furan derivatives from carbohydrates and the catalytic routes from furan intermediates to chemicals and polymers have been reviewed by Moreau et al. [27]. Some of the main reactions are summarized in Fig. 3.2. From fructose or carbohydrates based on fructose (sucrose, inulin), the first transformation step is dehydration to 5-hydroxy methylfur-fural (HMF). Fructose dehydration at 165 °C was performed in the presence of... 

The reaction appears to be general and the additions are regiospecific and stereoselective. The product from the reaction with 2-propanol has been used for the synthesis of cis-chrysanthemic acid,8 and the product with methanol has been used for the construction of novel 2, 3 -dideoxy-3 -hydroxymethylnucleosides.9 In addition, ethane-1,2-diol provides the expected photoadduct as a 1 1 mixture of the two possible diastereoisomers, and these can be easily separated as their acetonides, to provide compounds with three contiguous chiral centers emanating from furan-ones with only one chiral center.9 More recently, we have shown that photoinduced-... 

It is interesting to consider the results of the molecular dynamics simulation showing that the reaction occurs in two stages that could well correspond to the formation of the transparent yellow and to the brownish products. As a whole, the calculations indicate that the final product is a bent polycarbonyl chain with five-membered rings attached and with interconnection between the various chains in a quasi-two-dimensional array. Such a rather extended array is not much different from the suggested structure of the polymer obtained from furan at high pressure [303, 338]. In the molecular dynamics simulation the formation of carbon dioxide molecules is not observed in agreement with the experimental result that CO2 formation only occurs upon intense laser irradiation. 

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