Ketene radical cation, reactions

Anodic oxidation reactions have been utilized to reverse the polarity of enol ethers and to initiate radical cation cyclizations. As shown below, the ketene acetal 97 is oxidized on a... 

Scheme 29 describes a plausible mechanism for the formation of the products which fit the observed coulometric (n 0.45 F/mol) and preparative results. The intramolecular cyclization process involves a dimerization between a radical cation 52a and the ketene imine 52 to form the intermediate radical cation 52b which then cyclizes to the radical 52c which can abstract a hydrogen atom leading to 54 or can be further oxidized and transformed through a cyclization and deprotonation reaction to 53 which involves 1 F/mol. However, it seems that the [2 -1- 3]-cycloaddition between the parent compound 52 and the cation 52d giving rise to 55 is the fastest reaction as compared with the intramolecular cyclization of 52d to 53. This can also explain the low consumption of electricity. 

Ion-radical organic reactions of the Sj j l type are less sterically restricted than classical Sj reactions. Generally, the nucleophilic (not Sj j ) reactivity varies with the steric demand at the reaction center. The electron-transfer reactivity does not depend on steric effects. To illustrate this, one can compare electron transfer and nucleophilic reactivity between ketene silyl acetals and cationic electrophiles (Fukuzumi et al. 2001). Nevertheless, space strains may determine the overall results of these reactions if either intermediate radicals or forming products are sterically hindered. 

In all examples discussed up to now the radical cation of Qo is involved in the reaction mechanism. However, due to the electronic features reduction of the fullerenes leading to radical anions should be much easier performed. For example, a useful method to synthesize 1-substituted l,2-dihydro-[60]fullerenes is the irradiation of Q0 with ketene silyl acetals (KAs) first reported by Nakamura et al. [216], Interestingly, when unstrained KAs are used, this reaction did not yield the expected [2 + 2]-cycloaddition product either by the thermal, as observed by the use of highly strained ketene silyl acetals [217], or by the photochemical pathway. In a typical reaction Q0 was irradiated for 10 h at 5°C with a high pressure mercury lamp (Pyrex filter) in a degassed toluene solution with an excess amount of the KA in the presence of water (Scheme 11). Some examples of the addition of KAs are summarized in Table 11. 

Cation radical cyclobutanation reactions of alkynes, ketenes, and allenes... 

The carbon-carbon bond formation via photoinduced electron transfer has recently attracted considerable attention from both synthetic and mechanistic viewpoints [240-243]. In order to achieve efficient C-C bond formation via photoinduced electron transfer, the choice of an appropriate electron donor is essential. Most importantly, the donor should be sufficiently strong to attain efficient photoinduced electron transfer. Furthermore, the bond cleavage in the donor radical cation produced in the photoinduced electron transfer should occur rapidly in competition with the fast back electron transfer. Organosilanes that have been frequently used as key reagents for many synthetically important transformations [244-247] have been reported to act as good electron donors in photoinduced electron-transfer reactions [248, 249]. The one-electron oxidation potentials of ketene silyl acetals (e.g., E°o relative to the SCE = 0.90 V for Me2C=C(OMe)OSiMe3) [248] are sufficiently low to render the efficient photoinduced electron transfer to Ceo [22], which, after the addition of ketene silyl acetals, yields the fullerene with an ester functionality (Eq. 15) [250, 251]. 

The photoinduced electron-transfer reactions are usually performed in polar solvents such as acetonitrile and benzonitrile, in which the solvation energy of free ions is greatly increased compared to non-polar solvents such as benzene. Such a difference in the solvation energy of ketene silyl acetal radical cation in benzene and... 

Many rearrangements have been invoked to explain the fragmentation pattern of molecular ions22 (It should be remembered that the fragmenting species are radical cations. Their radical functionality may open to them reaction paths which are not available to simple carbocations). Only a few illustrative examples of well-established alkyl and aryl shifts are given here. The mass spectrum of camphor displays the base peak at m/e 95, corresponding to the loss of ketene and a methyl radical. As shown... 

Moeller synthesized tetrahydrofuran natural products (+)-linalool oxide <01OL2685> and (+)-nemorensic acid <01TL7163> by employing intramolecular coupling reactions of enol ether radical cations as well as ketene dithioacetal radical cations with oxygen nucleophiles. 

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