Halides, alkyl, reaction with nitro compounds

The carbon-carbon bond forming reactions of nitro compounds by alkylation with alkyl halides or acylation with acyl halides have been encountered with difficulties of the competing O-alkylation or O-acylation, respectively. In this chapter, the recent developments of C-alkylations and C-acylations of nitro compounds are summarized. The O-alkylated compounds undergo cycloaddition reactions, which are discussed in the chapter of cycloaddition (Chapter 8). 

Carbonium ions can be generated at a variety of oxidation levels. The alkyl carbocation can be generated from alkyl halides by reaction with a Lewis acid (RCl + AICI3) or by protonation of alcohols or alkenes. The reaction of an alkyl halide and aluminium trichloride with an aromatic ring is known as the Friedel-Crafts alkylation. The order of stability of a carbocation is tertiary > secondary > primary. Since many alkylation processes are slower than rearrangements, a secondary or tertiary carbocation may be formed before aromatic substitution occurs. Alkylation of benzene with 1-chloropropane in the presence of aluminium trichloride at 35 °C for 5 hours gave a 2 3 mixture of n- and isopropylbenzene (Scheme 4.5). Since the alkylbenzenes such as toluene and the xylenes (dimethylbenzenes) are more electron rich than benzene itself, it is difficult to prevent polysubsiitution and consequently mixtures of polyalkylated benzenes may be obtained. On the other hand, nitro compounds are sufficiently deactivated for the reaction to be unsuccessful. 

A mechanism of this type permits substitution of certain aromatic and ahphatic nitro compounds by a variety of nucleophiles. These reactions were discovered as the result of efforts to explain the mechanistic basis for high-yield carbon alkylation of the 2-nitropropane anion by p-nitrobenzyl chloride. p-Nitrobenzyl bromide and iodide and benzyl halides that do not contain a nitro substituent give mainly the unstable oxygen alkylation product with this ambident anion ... 

Such cyclohexadienes are easily oxidizable to benzenes (often by atmospheric oxygen), so this reaction becomes a method of alkylating and arylating suitably substituted (usually hindered) aryl ketones. A similar reaction has been reported for aromatic nitro compounds where 1,3,5-trinitrobenzene reacts with excess methyl-magnesium halide to give 2,4,6-trinitro-l,3,5-trimethylcyclohexane. Both... 

The reaction of alkyl halides with metal nitrites is one of the most important methods for the preparation of nitroalkanes. As a metal nitrite, silver nitrite (Victor-Meyer reaction), potassium nitrite, or sodium nitrite (Kornblum reaction) have been frequently used. The products are usually a mixture of nitroalkanes and alkyl nitrites, which are readily separated by distillation (Eq. 2.47). The synthesis of nitro compounds by this process is well documented in the reviews, and some typical cases are listed in Table 2.3.92a Primary and secondary alkyl iodides and bromides as well as sulfonate esters give the corresponding nitro compounds in 50-70% yields on treatment with NaN02 in DMF or DMSO. Some of them are described precisely in vol 4 of Organic Synthesis. For example, 1,4-dinitrobutane is prepared in 41 -46% yield by the reaction of 1,4-diiodobutane with silver nitrite in diethyl ether.92b 1-Nitrooctane is prepared by the reaction with silver nitrite in 75-80% yield. The reaction of silver nitrite with secondary halides gives yields of nitroalkanes of about 15%, whereas with tertiary halides the yields are 0-5%.92c Ethyl a-nitrobutyrate is prepared by the reaction of ethyl a-bromobutyrate in 68-75% yield with sodium nitrite in DMF.92d Sodium nitrite is considerably more soluble in DMSO than in DMF as a consequence, with DMSO, much more concentrated solutions can be employed and this makes shorter reaction times possible.926... 

Monoanions derived from nitroalkanes are more prone to alkylate on oxygen rather than on carbon in reactions with alkyl halides, as discussed in Section 5.1. Methods to circumvent O-alkylation of nitro compounds are presented in Sections 5.1 and 5.4, in which alkylation of the a.a-dianions of primary nitro compounds and radial reactions are described. Palladium-catalyzed alkylation of nitro compounds offers another useful method for C-alkylation of nitro compounds. Tsuj i and Trost have developed the carbon-carbon bond forming reactions using 7t-allyl Pd complexes. Various nucleophiles such as the anions derived from diethyl malonate or ethyl acetoacetate are employed for this transformation, as shown in Scheme 5.7. This process is now one of the most important tools for synthesis of complex compounds.6811-1 Nitro compounds can participate in palladium-catalyzed alkylation, both as alkylating agents (see Section 7.1.2) and nucleophiles. This section summarizes the C-alkylation of nitro compounds using transition metals. 

One of the most important reactions for the laboratory synthesis of primary aliphatic nitro compounds was discovered by V. Meyer and O. Stiiber in 1872 and involves treating alkyl halides with a suspension of silver nitrite in anhydrous diethyl ether. Benzene, hexane and petroleum ether have also been used as solvents for these reactions which are usually conducted between 0 °C and room temperature in the absence of light. 

The synthesis of aliphatic nitro compounds from the reaction of alkyl halides with alkali metal nitrites was discovered by Kornblum and co-workers and is known as the modified Victor Meyer reaction or the Kornblum modification. The choice of solvent in these reactions is crucial when sodium nitrite is used as the nitrite soiuce. Both alkyl halide and nitrite anion must be in solution to react, and the higher the concentration of nitrite anion, the faster the reaction. For this reason, both DMF and DMSO are widely used as solvents, with both able to dissolve appreciable amounts of sodium nitrite. Although sodium nitrite is more soluble in DMSO than DMF the former can react with some halide substrates.Urea is occasionally added to DMF solutions of sodium nitrite to increase the solubility of this salt and hence increase reaction rates. Other alkali metal nitrites can be used in these reactions, like lithium nitrite,which is more soluble in DMF than sodium nitrite but is also less widely available. 

Silver nitrite gives significantly higher yields of nitro compounds from primary alkyl halides, and consequently, the synthesis of Q, ty-dinitroalkanes from the reaction of o, )-dihaloalkanes with sodium nitrite is inferior to the same reaction with silver nitrite (Table 1.2). However, the use of a solvent system composed of DMSO and MEK is reported to considerably improve the yields of Q , y-dinitroalkane when using sodium nitrite. ... 

Routes to aliphatic nitro compounds include the reaction of an alkyl halide (of good SN2 reactivity) with nitrite ion. Suitable solvents are methyl-sulfinylmethane [dimethyl sulfoxide, (CH3)2SO] and dimethylmethanamide (dimethylformamide). As will be seen from Equation 24-6, formation of the nitrite ester by O- instead of N-alkylation is a competing reaction ... 

Nitro compounds can be alkylated and are good at conjugate addition (chapter 21) so the products of these reactions can be used to make aldehydes, ketones and amines. A simple synthesis of octanal5 shows that these methods can work very well indeed. Alkylation of nitromethane with bromoheptane gives the nitro-compound 11. Formation of the anion 12 and oxidation with KMnC>4 gives octanal in 89% yield. This chemistry gives us the disconnection to an alkyl halide and a carbonyl anion. The anion 12 is an acyl anion equivalent and we shall need these in the next chapter. 

The synthesis of N-alkylated dihydropteridinones 34 started with a displacement reaction of 4,6-dichloro-5-nitropyrimidine with a fluorous amino-ester (Scheme 23) [53]. The compounds formed 35 were then reacted with secondary amines to yield 36. The reduction of the nitro group of 36 was conducted by hydrogenation using Pd on charcoal as a catalyst. The cyclization reactions of 37 were promoted by microwave irradiation. The N-alkylation reaction of the cyclized products 38 with benzyl halides gave monobenzylated... 

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