Halides, aryl reaction with amide anions

Tertiary benzylic nitriles are useful synthetic intermediates, and have been used for the preparation of amidines, lactones, primary amines, pyridines, aldehydes, carboxylic acids, and esters. The general synthetic pathway to this class of compounds relies on the displacement of an activated benzylic alcohol or benzylic halide with a cyanide source followed by double alkylation under basic conditions. For instance, 2-(2-methoxyphenyl)-2-methylpropionitrile has been prepared by methylation of (2-methoxyphenyl)acetonitrile using sodium amide and iodomethane. In the course of the preparation of a drug candidate, the submitters discovered that the nucleophilic aromatic substitution of aryl fluorides with the anion of a secondary nitrile is an effective method for the preparation of these compounds. The reaction was studied using isobutyronitrile and 2-fluoroanisole. The submitters first showed that KHMDS was the superior base for the process when carried out in either THF or toluene (Table I). For example, they found that the preparation of 2-(2-methoxyphenyl)-2-methylpropionitrile could be accomplished h... 

Figure 8.12 illustrates how a product study may not show what a mechanism is, but it can show what it is not. Reaction of the aryl halide with amide anion in liquid ammonia gives two products, in almost exactly equal amounts. This means that the replacement of chloride by an amino group cannot be a direct displacement, as this could give rise to only one of the products observed. In the second example, the stereochemistry of the product shows that it cannot have been produced in a simple one-step process—as this would give rise to a ci5-product. 

Alkyltriphenylphosphonium halides are only weakly acidic, and a strong base must be used for deprotonation. Possibilities include organolithium reagents, the anion of dimethyl sulfoxide, and amide ion or substituted amide anions, such as LDA or NaHMDS. The ylides are not normally isolated, so the reaction is carried out either with the carbonyl compound present or with it added immediately after ylide formation. Ylides with nonpolar substituents, e.g., R = H, alkyl, aryl, are quite reactive toward both ketones and aldehydes. Ylides having an a-EWG substituent, such as alkoxycarbonyl or acyl, are less reactive and are called stabilized ylides. 

The carbanions derived from A,A-disubstituted amides and lactams react with certain aromatic halides in liquid ammonia under photostimulation [85,86] to form the expected a-arylated compounds in good yields. Unsymmetrical a, a-diaryl amides can be formed by reaction of aryl halides with the anion of the oc-aryl-A,7V-dimethyl acetamides [85]. 

Under ordinary conditions, aryl or alkenyl halides do not react with enolate anions, although reaction can occur with aryl halides bearing strongly electronegative substituents in the ortho and para positions. 2,4-Dinitrochlorobenzene, for example, with ethyl cyanoacetate gives ethyl (2,4-dinitrophenyl)cyanoacetate (90%) by an addition-elimination pathway. Unactivated aryl halides may react with enolates under more vigorous conditions, particularly sodium amide in liquid ammonia. Under these conditions, the reaction of bromobenzene with diethyl-malonate, for example, takes place by an elimination-addition sequence in which benzyne is an intermediate (1.8). 

On the basis of the labeling experiment, an alternative mechanism was proposed for the substitution reaction of aryl halides with strong base-the elimination-addition mechanism. In the first step, the elimination stage, amide anion removes a proton from the carbon on the ring adjacent to the one with the halogen. The product is an unstable intermediate known as henzyne. 

The first example of an enantioselective intramolecular cascade Mizoroki-Heck-cyanation sequence was recently reported which included the reaction of amide 104 (Scheme 12.24) [33], The cyanide source employed was potassium ferro(II)cyanide, which has been utilized for the palladium-catalysed cyanation of aryl halides. The proposed reaction pathway for the Mizoroki-Heck-cyanation involves capture of a a-alkylpalladium intermediate. Previous examples of enantioselective Mizoroki-Heck cyclization-anion capture most often involve trapping of the 7r-allylpalladium complexes in group-selective reactions. Reaction conditions were surveyed for the Mizoroki-Heck cyanation sequence. It was found that Pd(dba)2 afforded better enantioselectivities than Pd(OAc)2 with Ag3P04 as the additive. Using PMP under neutral conditions led to racemic product. To improve the enantioselectivity, several bidentate ligands were screened, and the ligand DIFLUORPHOS 54a was found to give the best enantioselectivity. 

More detailed mechanistic studies have been conducted with isolated ligated copper complexes, along with kinetic studies on reactions catalyzed by complexes of diamine ligands. These studies have shown that copper(I) amidate and imidate complexes are competent to be intermediates in the catalytic coupling of aryl halide with amides and imi-des. These studies also implied that two-coordinate anionic cuprate complexes undergo oxidative addition of the aryl halide more slowly than do related three-coordinate, neutral copper complexes containing a bidentate dative ligand. This conclusion is shown clearly by the formation of coupled product from iodotoluene and the species that equilibrates between the ionic and three-coordinate neutral species (Equation 19.119) and the lack of... 

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