Iron enolates aldol reaction

A powerful variation of the iron acetyl enolate aldol reaction utilizes the cnolate of complex 8 which bears a (pentafluorophenyl)diphenylphosphane ligand in place of the more usual triphenylphosphane47. The enolate species 9. prepared by treatment of 8 with lithium diiso-propylamide, reacts at — 78 °C with benzaldehyde to produce the aldol adduct 10 with a d.r. of 98.5 1.5. 

Hydroxy-substituted iron-acyl complexes 1, which are derived from aldol reactions of iron-acyl enolates with carbonyl compounds, are readily converted to the corresponding /i-methoxy or /1-acetoxy complexes 2 on deprotonation and reaction of the resulting alkoxide with iodomethane or acetic anhydride (Tabic 1). Further exposure of these materials to base promotes elimination of methoxide or acetate to provide the a,/ -unsaturated complexes (E)-3 and (Z)-3 (Table 2). 

Aldol reaction of the a-trimethylsilylated enolate 9 with aldehydes provides nearly equal amounts of chromatographically separable ( )- and (Z)-isomers of iron-acyl complexes 11 via silyloxide elimination from the intermedate aldolate 10 (Table 3). This methodology has been the most commonly employed entry to the (Z)-isomer series. 

The aldol reaction of iron-acetyl enolates such as 1 with aldehydes creates a new stereogenic center at the (S-carbon of the product complexes. 

Aldol reactions of a-substituted iron-acetyl enolates such as 1 generate a stcrcogenic center at the a-carbon, which engenders the possibility of two diastereomeric aldol adducts 2 and 3 on reaction with symmetrical ketones, and the possibility of four diastereomeric aldol adducts 4, 5, 6, and 7 on reaction with aldehydes or unsymmetrical ketones. The following sections describe the asymmetric aldol reactions of chiral enolate species such as 1. 

Conducting the aldol reaction at temperatures below —78 "C increases the diastereoselectivity, but at the cost of reduced yields45. Transmetalation of the lithium enolate 2 a by treatment with diethylaluminum chloride generated an enolate species that provided high yields of aldol products, however, the diastereoselectivity was as low as that of the lithium species45. Pre treatment of the lithium enolate 2a with tin(II) chloride, zinc(II) chloride, or boron trifluoridc suppressed the aldol reaction and the starting iron-acyl complex was recovered. 

The a-alkoxy iron-acyl complex 5 may be deprotonated to generate the lithium enolate 6, which undergoes a highly diastereoselective aldol reaction with acetone to generate the adduct 7 as the major product. Deprotonation of acetone by 6 is believed to be a competing reaction 30% of the starting complex 5 is found in the product mixture48 40. 

The diastereoselectivity of this reaction contrasts dramatically with the generally low selectiv-ities observed for aldol reactions of lithium enolates of iron acyls. It has been suggested thal this enolate exists as a chelated species48 the major diastereomer produced is consistent with the transition state E which embodies the usual antiperiplanar enolate geometry. 

Most of the work in this area has concerned complexes racemic at iron. Section D.1.3.4.2.5.1.1. details methods for the preparation and resolution of enantiomerically pure iron acyl complexes. The details of alkylation reactions (see Section 1.1.1.3.4.1.3.) and aldol reactions (see Section 1.3.4.2.5.1.2.) of these and other iron acyl enolates are presented later with examples utilizing enantiomerically pure complexes indicated therein. Table 1 illustrates the scope of iron-acyl enolates prepared by deprotonation of complex 10 and its analogs. 

The mechanism of the catalytic cycle is outlined in Scheme 1.37 [11]. It involves the formation of a reactive 16-electron tricarbonyliron species by coordination of allyl alcohol to pentacarbonyliron and sequential loss of two carbon monoxide ligands. Oxidative addition to a Jt-allyl hydride complex with iron in the oxidation state +2, followed by reductive elimination, affords an alkene-tricarbonyliron complex. As a result of the [1, 3]-hydride shift the allyl alcohol has been converted to an enol, which is released and the catalytically active tricarbonyliron species is regenerated. This example demonstrates that oxidation and reduction steps can be merged to a one-pot procedure by transferring them into oxidative addition and reductive elimination using the transition metal as a reversible switch. Recently, this reaction has been integrated into a tandem isomerization-aldolization reaction which was applied to the synthesis of indanones and indenones [81] and for the transformation of vinylic furanoses into cydopentenones [82]. 

Recently the isolation arid structure determination of the aldol product of the chiral iron enolate (161) with benzaldehyde was obtained as (162). Hiis structure is presumed to mimic closely the structure of the cyclic transition state for the aldol reaction. 

The only main Group III metal, other than boron, that has been utilized in the aldol reaction is aluminum, the enolates of which behave rather capriciously in terms of stereochemistry. The A1—C bond is relatively weak. However, aldol reactions with aluminum enolates derived from chiral acyl-iron complexes proceed with high asymmetric induction. 

Davies and Liebeskind independently prepared chiral aluminum enolates from enantiomerically homogeneous acyl-iron complexes (137) and recorded the first aluminum-mediated asymmetric aldol reactions. Although the lithium enolate of the chiral iron complex (CHIRAC) provides aldol products with... 

Asymmetric aldol reactions are also possible with chiral propanoyl-iron complexes, as shown in Scheme 62. ° Good to excellent stereoselectivities for anti aldol products (140) are obtained when the lithium enolate of the propanoyl-iron complex is treated with 3 equiv. of EtaAlCl at -40 °C, followed by an aldehyde at -100 °C. Interestingly the same reaction using CuCN instead of Et2AlCl provides exclusively syn aldol products (141). 

This complex has several interesting characteristics (i) it is easy to prepare and handle, (ii) it is chiral-at-iron and can be resolved, and (iii) the protons a to the acyl group are acidic and the corresponding metal acyl enolate undergoes a variety of transformations including alkylations, aldol reactions, conjugate addition reactions and Diels-Alder reactions (Scheme 3.6). 

Diastereoselective aldol reactions of various aldehydes with trimethylsilyl enolates have been carried out in neat water using iron(III) chloride and a surfactant with high yields and better diastereoselectivities than with Sc(OTf)3 (Scheme 8.8). ... 

Another auxiliary that became well known in enolate chemistry is chiral acyl iron complexes for alkylation, aldol reactions, and conjugate additions indeed, so-called Davies-Liebeskind enolates [60] can be generated either by deprotonation of alkanoyl complexes 124a or conjugate addition of strong nucleophiles like alkyllithium compounds or lithium amides to alkenoyl complexes 127. 

Of special interest are chiral-at-iron complexes bearing a carbonyl, a phosphane, a Cp, and an acetyl ligand. The racemic complexes can be kinetically resolved by aldol reaction of their enolates with (l/ )-(+)-camphor (Scheme 4-43). " ... 

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