Hydroxylamines primary, reactions with carbonyls

Addition of primary amines to carbonyl groups has been the subject of extensive study, notably by Jencks and co-workers.91 The most striking feature of these reactions is the characteristic maximum in the graph of reaction rate as a function of pH.92 Figure 8.10 illustrates the observations for the reaction of hydroxylamine with acetone. It is also found that the sensitivity of rate to acid catalysis,93 and to substituent effects,94 is different on either side of the maximum in the pH-rate curve. These phenomena may be understood in terms of the two-step nature of the reaction. In acetal formation, we saw in Section 8.3 that the second step is rate-limiting in the overall process, and it is relatively easy to study the two steps separately here, the rates of the two steps are much more closely balanced, so that one or the other is rate-determining depending on the pH. 

The presence of the double bond (carbonyl group C 0) markedly determines the. chemical behavior of the aldehydes. The hydrogen atom connected directly to the carbonyl group is not easily displaced. The chemical properties of the aldehy des may be summarized by (1) they react with alcohols, with elimination of H2O, to form ace t i (2) they combine readily with HCN to form cyanohydrins, (3) they react with hydroxylamine to yield aldoximes (4) they react with hydrazine to form hydrazones (5) they can be oxidized lulu fatty acids, which contain die same [lumber of carbons as in the initial aldehyde 5) they can be reduced readily to form primary alcohols. When bcnzaldchydc is reduced with sodium amalgam and HjO, benzyl alcohol C,f l - -C f I Of I is obtained. The latter compound also may be obtained by treating benzaldehyde with a solution of cold KOH in which benzyl alcohol and potassium benzoate are produced. The latter reaction is known as Cannizzaro s reaction. 

On the other hand, conjugated nitroalkenes are very useful electron-poor alkenes, prone to act as nucleophilic acceptor, mainly in the Michael reaction (Berestovitaskaya et al., 1994) or in the Diels-Alder cycloaddition (Denmark and Thorarensen, 1996). Moreover, the nitro group can be easily turned into a respectable array of functional groups such as its reduction to a primary amine, replacement with hydrogen (Ballini et al., 1983 Ono, 2001), conversion into a carbonyl (Nef reaction) (Ballini and Petrini, 2004), and transformation into other important functionalities such as nitrile, nitrile oxide, oximes, hydroxylamines, and thiols (Colvin et al., 1979). 

A number of reactions of nitrogen-containing nucleophiles with aldehydes and ketones involve addition of the nitrogen to the carbon of the carbonyl group, followed by elimination of water to produce a double bond. Common examples are reactions of primary amines to produce substituted imines, reactions of secondary amines to produce enamines, reactions of hydrazine or substituted hydrazines to produce hydrazones, reactions of semicarbazides to give semicarbazones, and reactions of hydroxylamine to produce oximes. Usually these reactions are run with an acid catalyst. 

Using this pulse sequence to estimate the nature of derivatization of Suwannee River fulvic acid with N-enriched hydroxylamine to leam more about the carbonyl functionality of fulvic acid, Thom et al.(76) obtained signals for the primary products as oximes. Additional signals of secondary products arising from Beckmann rearrangements of the initial oxime derivatives were identified as nitriles, secondary amides and lactams. The bands assigned to hydroxamic acid result from a reaction of esters with NH2OH and are evidence for the presence of esters in the fulvic acid. 

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