Halides optically-active

In 1998, Corey and coworkers reported the alkylation of enolizable (ky-unsaturated ester 58 in the presence of the catalyst 13 (Scheme 6.17) [42]. The a-alkylated products 59 were obtained in high optical purities with a broad variety of alkyl halides. Optically active tetrahydropyran derivatives 60 were prepared from the product 59b. 

These reactions follow first-order kinetics and proceed with racemisalion if the reaction site is an optically active centre. For alkyl halides nucleophilic substitution proceeds easily primary halides favour Sn2 mechanisms and tertiary halides favour S 1 mechanisms. Aryl halides undergo nucleophilic substitution with difficulty and sometimes involve aryne intermediates. 

Organophosphorus compounds. Phosphorus-carbon bond fonnation takes place by the reaction of various phosphorus compounds containing a P—H bond with halides or tritlates. Alkylaryl- or alkenylalkylphosphinates are prepared from alkylphosphinate[638]. The optically active isopropyl alkenyl-methylphosphinate 778 is prepared from isopropyl methylphosphinate with retention[639]. The monoaryl and symmetrical and asymmetric diarylphosphi-nates 780, 781, and 782 are prepared by the reaction of the unstable methyl phosphinate 779 with different amounts of aryl iodides. Tnmethyl orthoformate is added to stabilize the methyl phosphinate[640]. 

Which of these two opposite stereochemical possibilities operates was determined in experiments with optically active alkyl halides In one such experiment Hughes and Ingold determined that the reaction of 2 bromooctane with hydroxide ion gave 2 octanol having a configuration opposite that of the starting alkyl halide... 

Although this mechanistic picture developed from experiments involving optically active alkyl halides chemists speak even of methyl halides as undergoing nucleophilic substitution with inversion By this they mean that tetrahedral inversion of the bonds to carbon occurs as the reactant proceeds to the product... 

Partial but not complete loss of optical activity m S l reactions probably results from the carbocation not being completely free when it is attacked by the nucleophile Ionization of the alkyl halide gives a carbocation-hahde ion pair as depicted m Figure 8 8 The halide ion shields one side of the carbocation and the nucleophile captures the carbocation faster from the opposite side More product of inverted configuration is formed than product of retained configuration In spite of the observation that the products of S l reactions are only partially racemic the fact that these reactions are not stereospecific is more consistent with a carbocation intermediate than a concerted bimolecular mechanism... 

An advantage that sulfonate esters have over alkyl halides is that their prepara tion from alcohols does not involve any of the bonds to carbon The alcohol oxygen becomes the oxygen that connects the alkyl group to the sulfonyl group Thus the configuration of a sulfonate ester is exactly the same as that of the alcohol from which It was prepared If we wish to study the stereochemistry of nucleophilic substitution m an optically active substrate for example we know that a tosylate ester will have the same configuration and the same optical purity as the alcohol from which it was prepared... 

The same cannot be said about reactions with alkyl halides as substrates The conver Sion of optically active 2 octanol to the corresponding halide does involve a bond to the chirality center and so the optical purity and absolute configuration of the alkyl halide need to be independently established... 

The few studies that have been carried out with optically active tertiary alcohols indicate that almost complete racemization accompanies the preparation of tertiary alkyl halides by this method... 

Under sonication conditions, the reaction of perfluoroalkyl bromides or iodides with zinc can be used to effect a variety of functionalization reactions [39, 40, 41, 42] (equation 30) Interestingly, the ultrasound promoted asymmetric induction with the perfluoroalkyl group on the asymmetric carbon was achieved by the reaction of perfluoroalkyl halides with optically active enamines in the presence of zinc powder and a catalytic amount of dichlorobisftc-cyclopenta-dienyl)titanium [42] (equation 31)... 

The resultant mixture can be separated by fractional crystallization as the trans-isomer is more soluble the m-isomer can be resolved into its enantiomers using optically active anions like a-bromocamphor 7r-sulphonate. These chlorides can be converted into the bromide or iodide complex by refluxing with a solution of the appropriate potassium halide. 

Optically active, a-branched lactams 30 have been built by means of Meyers chiral auxiliaries [ 10]. The key step included the diastereoselective a-alkylations of the initially formed co-i -sulfonamido oxazolines 26. The R or S configuration in the product 27 was obtained reacting the appropriately configured intermediate aza enolates with alkyl halides, high diastereoselectivities have been reported. Several attempts to achieve a complete ring closure to the lactams 30 (via 29) by an acidic cleavage of the oxazolines 27 failed. Varying mixtures of... 

Example Optically active acid (16) was needed (p T 107 ) for the synthesis of an ant alarm pheromone. The branch point ( in 16) is also the chiral centre so it is better to avoid disconnections there. The 1,2 C-C disconnection (16a) is ideal as it gives synthon (17), for which we use a malonate ester, and halide (18), available from optically active alcohol (19), a major by-product from fermentation. 

Asymmetric Allylation. One of the recent new developments on this subject is the asymmetric allylation reaction. It was found that native and trimethylated cyclodextrins (CDs) promote enantiose-lective allylation of 2-cyclohexenone and aldehydes using Zn dust and alkyl halides in 5 1 H2O-THF. Moderately optically active products with ee up to 50% were obtained.188 The results can be rationalized in terms of the formation of inclusion complexes between the substrates and the CDs and of their interaction with the surface of the metal. 

A possible mechanism proposed by Kuivila was based on the fact that retardation by hydroquinone has been observed 72) (see however 73)) and that optically active alkyl halides RX have been transformed into racemic RD 72). 

Very little is known concerning the stereochemistry of electrochemical reduction of simple acyclic halides. Eberson studied the reduction of optically active a-methylbenzyl chloride (11) in dimethylformamide (DMF) containing deuterium oxide 21K The a-deuterioethylbenzene (12) obtained from this... 

Hydrolysis of an optically active form of a chiral halide presents some interesting stereochemical features. Thus considering each pathway in turn ... 

This is, of course, the Wurtz reaction, and support for such a mechanism involving carbanions (radicals may be involved under some conditions, however) is provided by the observation that in some cases it is possible, with optically active halides, to demonstrate inversion of configuration at the carbon atom undergoing nucleophilic attack. The carbanion, e.g. (61), can also act as a base and promote elimination ... 

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