Ketones carbanion addition

The reductive cleavage of ketol acetates involves addition of two electrons to the system with fragmentation into an acetate ion and a ketone carbanion... 

Crossed aldol condensations, where both aldehydes (or other suitable carbonyl compounds) have a-H atoms, are not normally of any preparative value as a mixture of four different products can result. Crossed aldol reactions can be of synthetic utility, where one aldehyde has no a-H, however, and can thus act only as a carbanion acceptor. An example is the Claisen-Schmidt condensation of aromatic aldehydes (98) with simple aliphatic aldehydes or (usually methyl) ketones in the presence of 10% aqueous KOH (dehydration always takes place subsequent to the initial carbanion addition under these conditions) ... 

The formation of this product need not concern us, hut its nature is important, in that it contains the equivalent of R or Ar , i.e. the alkyl or aryl group has been transformed into its carbanion. Addition of an aldehyde or ketone to the solution of the Grignard reagent allows a nucleophilic addition reaction to occur. The reaction resembles that of... 

In the absence of a proton donor, the alkoxide ion generated by carbanion addition to the carbonyl function can interact with a carbon-halogen bond in the 8 2 displacement reaction. Reactions of this type have led to some novel carbon chain forming processes. Ketones are converted to homologated enones in good yield by... 

Simpkins and coworkers reported the use of chiral bases in the enantioselective generation of bridgehead enolates (Scheme 36)76. Initial studies revealed that external quench protocols were ineffective in trapping the carbanion. Addition of a mixture containing chiral base (R,R) 3 and LiCl to a solution of ketone 55 and TMSC1 at —105 °C gave mono (—)-a-silylated ketone 56 in 76% yield and >96% ee. 

A few examples of chemoselective additions of allyltitanium reagents to aliphatic and aromatic carbonyl compounds are reported in Table 7. Appreciable chemoselectivity toward the aldehydic function is achieved by the titanium ate conqtlex (23), whereas the reverse chemoselectivity toward ketones is realized using aminotitanium complex (104) and the analogous ate complexes (24) and (25), as is shown in Table 7. This is very interestii since it represents a rare case of chemoselectivity in favor of carbanion addition to ketones. A tentative explanation of this inverse chemoselection considers a fast transfer of the aminyl ligand onto the aldehyde function which becomes protected , as in (105), and thus unreactive in respect to the keto group. Ketones react also selectively compared with esters, as is shown by the reaction of ethyl levulinate (1) with the ate complex (23 equation 40). ... 

Synthetic and biological interest in highly functionalized acyclic and cyclic amines has contributed to the wealth of experimental methodology developed for the addition of carbanions to the caibon-mtrogen double bond of imines/imine derivatives (azomethines). While a variety of practical methods exist for the enantio- and stereo-selective syntheses of substituted alcohols from aldehyde and ketone precursors, related imine additions have inherent structural limitations. Nonetheless imines, by virtue of nitrogen substitution, add a synthetic dimension not available to ketones. In addition, improved procedures for the preparation and activation of imines/imine derivatives have increased the scope of the imine addition reaction. 

The strategies presented in Table 8.1 can be generalized in the following manner (1) carbanion addition to aldimine or ketimine derivatives (2) sequential amination-alkylation of aldehydes (carbanion addition to in situ formed aldimine derivatives) (3) transfer hydrogenation or hydrogenation of imines (4) reductive amination of ketones and (5) N-acetylenamide reduction. Because of the difficulty of their synthesis, a-alkyl,-alkyl substituted amines are highlighted whenever possible. 

For Michael additions of CH acidic compounds (e.g. diethyl malonate with a,3-unsaturated ketones) the following recommendations are given "When possible, relatively weak basic catalysts such as piperidine... should be selected. If stronger bases are required, it is normally appropriate to use only 0.1 to 0.3 equivalent of the base." The analogy of these conditions to those specified by our rule A is obvious (concentration control). On the other hand, preformed carbanions (organometallies) are usually employed when the addend is more basic than the enolate produced by attack at the unsaturated carbonyl compound. Though the nature of the metal ion plays a crucial rule in many "carbanionic" addition reactions, a first understanding of the principles involved can be... 

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