Halides, alkyl, addition alkenes, Friedel-Crafts

Note This reaction involves a polar acidic mechanism, not a free-radical mechanism It is a Friedel-Crafts alkylation, with the slight variation that the requisite carbocation is made by protonation of an alkene instead of ionization of an alkyl halide. Protonation of C4 gives a C3 carbocation. Addition to Cl and fragmentation gives the product. 

C-Alkylations have been performed with both support-bound carbon nucleophiles and support-bound carbon electrophiles. Benzyl, allyl, and aryl halides or triflates have generally been used as the carbon electrophiles. Suitable carbon nucleophiles are boranes, organozinc and organomagnesium compounds. C-Alkylations have also been accomplished by the addition of radicals to alkenes. Polystyrene can also be alkylated under harsh conditions, e.g. by Friedel-Crafts alkylation [11-16] in the presence of strong acids. This type of reaction is incompatible with most linkers and is generally only suitable for the preparation of functionalized supports. Few examples have been reported of the preparation of alkanes by C-C bond formation on solid phase, and general methodologies for such preparations are still scarce. 

Olah and coworkers, ° and Mayr and Striepe discussed the scope and limitations of aliphatic Friedel-Crafts alkylations. In particular, they considered factors that would favor reactions of the type shown in equation (121), where an alkene is alkylated by an alkyl halide. ° They reasoned that formation of the 1 1 addition products (42) can be expected, if (41) reacts faster with the alkene than (42), otherwise higher addition products will be formed. Mayr ° suggested that the relative dissociation rates of (41) and (42) induced by the Lewis acid should reflect their relative rates of addition to a common alkene. Furthermore, it was assumed that the solvolysis rates in 80% ethanol were proportional to the Lewis acid induced dissociation constants. A few examples where good yields of alkylated (addition) products were obtained are shown in equations (122) and (123). 

Friedel-Crafts alkylations can also be done using alkenes instead of alkyl halides. A Lewis acid is not needed, but a mineral acid is required. Treatment of the alkene with the acid leads to a carbocation that can then react with an aromatic ring by the electrophilic substitution mechanism already described (Following fig.). For an alkene, this is another example of electrophilic addition where a proton is attached to one end of the double bond and a phenyl group is added to the other. 

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