Imine anions protonation

Base catalyzed nitrile hydrolysis involves nucleophilic addition of hydroxide ion to the polar C=N bond to give an imine anion. Protonation then gives a hydroxy imine, which isomerizes to an amide. The mechanism is shown in Figure 15.3. 

Protonation of the imine anion by water yields a hydroxyimine and regenerates the base catalyst. 

Reduction Conversion of Nitriles into Amines Reduction of a nitrile with LiAIH4 gives a primary amine, RNH . The reaction occurs by nucleophilic addition of hydride ion to the polar C=N bond, yielding an imine anion, which still contains a C=N bond and therefore undergoes a second nucleophilic addition of hydride to give a dianion. Both monoanion and dianion intermediates are undoubtedly stabilized by Lewis acid-base complexafion to an aluminum species, facilitating the second addition that would otherwise be difficult Protonation of the dianion by addition of water in a subsequent step gives the amine. 

Ester 324 is hydrolyzed to acid 325 by refluxing in 10% NaOH. In a reaction with thionyl chloride, acid 325 is converted to acid chloride 326, which is isolated as a solid in 96% yield and consecutively converted into amide 327 in 85% yield. Treatment of amide 327 with LDA extracts a proton from the methyl group. The generated anion is trapped by added benzonitrile. Subsequent cyclocondensation of the obtained imine anion with the amide group provides derivative 328 in 62% isolated yield (Scheme 50) <2003EJM983>. 

Lithium Enolates. The control of mixed aldol additions between aldehydes and ketones that present several possible sites for enolization is a challenging problem. Such reactions are normally carried out by complete conversion of the carbonyl compound that is to serve as the nucleophile to an enolate, silyl enol ether, or imine anion. The reactive nucleophile is then allowed to react with the second reaction component. As long as the addition step is faster than proton transfer, or other mechanisms of interconversion of the nucleophilic and electrophilic components, the adduct will have the desired... 

As shown in Figure 20.4, base-catalyzed nitrile hydrolysis involves nucleophilic addition of hydroxide ion to the polar C = N bond to give an imine anion in a process similar to nucleophilic addition to a polar C=0 bond to give an alkoxide anion. Protonation then gives a hydroxy imine, which tautomerizes (Section 9.4) to an amide in a step similar to the tautomerization of an enol to a ketone. Further hydrolysis gives a carboxylate ion. 

Only in 1961 did Woodward and Olofson succeed in elucidating the true mechanism of this interesting reaction by making an extensive use of spectroscopic methods. The difficulty was that the reaction proceeds in many stages. The isomeric compounds formed thereby are extremely labile, readily interconvertible, and can be identified only spectroscopically. The authors found that the attack by the anion eliminates the proton at C-3 (147) subsequent cleavage of the N—0 bond yields a -oxoketene imine (148) whose formation was established for the first time. The oxoketene imine spontaneously adds acetic acid and is converted via two intermediates (149, 150) to an enol acetate (151) whose structure was determined by UV spectra. Finally the enol acetate readily yields the W-acyl derivative (152). 

In a further development on this theme, the thiol, 153, is first alkylated to the corresponding benzyl ether (158). Treatment with sodium methoxide removes the proton on the amide nitrogen to afford the ambient anion (159). This undergoes alkylation with methyl bromide on the ring nitrogen thus it locks amide into the imine form (160). Chlorolysis serves both to oxidize the sulfur to the sulfone stage and to cleave the benzyl ether linkage there is thus obtained the sulfonyl chloride, 161. 

This approach finds experimental support in FTIR measurements of the oxidation of PANI in organic solvents which indicate an anion intercalation mechanism for the second oxidation step. However, the IR findings may also be interpreted as support for the formation of a protonated imine structure... 

More recently Hand et al. (ref. 9) have studied the decomposition reaction of N-chloro-a-amino acid anions in neutral aqueous solution, where the main reaction products are carbon dioxide, chloride ion and imines (which hydrolyze rapidly to amine and carbonyl products). They found that the reaction rate constant of decarboxylation was independent of pH, so they ruled out a proton assisted decarboxylation mechanism, and the one proposed consists of a concerted decarboxylation. For N-bromoamino acids decomposition in the pH interval 9-11 a similar concerted mechanism was proposed by Antelo et al. (ref. 10), where the formation of a nitrenium ion (ref. 11) can be ruled out because it is not consistent with the experimental results. Antelo et al. have also established that when the decomposition reaction takes place at pH < 9, the disproportionation reaction of the N-Br-amino acid becomes important, and the decomposition goes through the N,N-dibromoamino acid. This reaction is also important for N-chloroamino compounds but at more acidic pH values, because the disproportionation reaction... 

The reductive couphng of imines can follow different pathways, depending on the nature of the one-electron reducing agent (cathode, metal, low-valent metal salt), the presence of a protic or electrophihc reagent, and the experimental conditions (Scheme 2). Starting from the imine 7, the one-electron reduction is facihtated by the preliminary formation of the iminiiim ion 8 by protonation or reaction with an electrophile, e.g., trimethylsilyl (TMS) chloride. Alternatively, the radical anion 9 is first formed by direct reduction of the imine 7, followed by protonation or reaction with the electrophile, so giving the same intermediate a-amino radical 10. The 1,2-diamine 11 can be formed from the radical 10 by dimerization (and subsequent removal of the electrophile) or addition to the iminium ion 8, followed by one-electron reduction of the so formed aminyl radical. In certain cases/conditions the radical 9 can be further reduced to the carbanion 12, which then attacks the... 

A highly stereoselective synthesis of the (3-substituted P-amino sulfone 271 involves the addition of a sulfonyl anion, derived from A-PMB sultam 268 upon treatment with NaHMDS, to chiral A-sulfinyl imine (5)-269 <06OL789>. Removal of the A-sulfinyl followed by basic workup affords amine 271. The stereochemical outcome of the adduct 270 was established via proton NMR analysis of the Mosher s amide derived from 271. 

The ready protonation of radical anions under conditions of proton availability causes other problems to appear, as for example shown by the stepwise cathodic reduction of PBN to the corresponding imine and amine [reactions (59) and (60)] during which the intermediate radicals [21] and [22] appear and become trapped by PBN (Simonet et al., 1990). 

Electron transfer reduction of pyridines in both acid and alkaline solution generates the protonated radical-anion. This rapidly accepts a further electron and a proton to give a mixture of dihydropyridines. Enamine structures in these dihydro-pyridines can tautomerise to the imine, which is more readily reduced than the original pyridine molecule. Further reaction of the 1,4-dihydropyridine leads to piperidine while reduction of the t, 2-dihydropyridine leads to a tetrahydropyridine in which the alkene group cannot tautomerise to the imine and which is not therefore reduced to the piperidine stage. The reaction sequence is illustrated for 2,6-dimethyl-pyridine 18 which yields the thermodynamically favoured cis-2,6-dimethylpiperidine in which the two alkyl substituents occupy equatorial conformations. 

Under ordinary conditions, reduction of these imines in dimethylformamide is a two-electron process involving saturation of the carbon-nitrogen double bond [181] because the radical from protonation of the radical-anion is more easily reduced than the starting imine. Immonium salts with two or more phenyl substituents are reduced reversibly in acetonitrile to the radical-zwitterion such as 42. Other immo-niura salts, e.g. 43, are reduced irreversibly to the dimer [182]. Radical-zwitterion intermediates generated from immonium salts exhibit nucleophilic character on carbon. Intramolecular interaction between the reduced immonium function and a... 

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