Ketones electrophilic scope

Dondoni pioneered the use of 2-(trimethylsilyl)thiazole (71) as a formyl anion equivalent for the homologation of aldehydes. Extension of this reaction to ketones would be very useful, but has thus far been restricted to tritluoromethyl cases. However, it has now been widened to include several a, a -alkoxy ketones, as demonstrated in a new route to branched-chain monosaccharides. Aldehydes catalyse the reaction, although the scope is still limited electrophilic aldehydes, such as 2-fluorobenzaldehyde, promote the addition of (71) to electrophilic ketones. 

So at the moment, the scope of our skill at synthesis is rather limited. We can extend it by the use of a—p unsaturated ketones as electrophiles. Where would the compound we have just made (281b) be attacked by nucleophiles ... 

The insight that zinc ester enolates can be prepared prior to the addition of the electrophile has largely expanded the scope of the Reformatsky reaction.1-3 Substrates such as azomethines that quaternize in the presence of a-halo-esters do react without incident under these two-step conditions.23 The same holds true for acyl halides which readily decompose on exposure to zinc dust, but react properly with preformed zinc ester enolates in the presence of catalytic amounts of Pd(0) complexes.24 Alkylations of Reformatsky reagents are usually difficult to achieve and proceed only with the most reactive agents such as methyl iodide or benzyl halides.25 However, zinc ester enolates can be cross-coupled with aryl- and alkenyl halides or -triflates, respectively, in the presence of transition metal catalysts in a Negishi-type reaction.26 Table 14.2 compiles a few selected examples of Reformatsky reactions with electrophiles other than aldehydes or ketones.27... 

The scope of the Type II Ac-Pd process has been significantly expanded by the development of those employing alkenyl allyl halides and related electrophiles. Initially formed j3,y -unsaturated ketones must isomerize to give the a i-unsaluratcd ketones. Since the a,j8-unsaturated ketones thus obtained are the same as those obtainable from the corresponding alkenyl halides, the two... 

Samarium acyl anions can be trapped by electrophiles other than acid halides. For example, addition of a mixture of a carboxylic acid chloride and an aldehyde or ketone to a solution of Sml2 in THF results in the synthesis of a-hydroxy ketones (equations 78 and 79). Intramolecular versions of the reaction have also been performed, although the scope of the reaction is limited owing to the difficulty in obtaining suitable substrates for the reaction (equation 80). ... 

The scope of vinyl metals as sources of nucleophilic vinyl groups is very great. As well as the expected electrophiles such as halogens, alkyl and acyl halides, aldehydes and ketones, unsaturated carbonyl compounds and epoxides, they also combine with aryl and alkenyl halides with palladium catalysis. The usual stereochemical course is retention at the vinyl group. It is necessary to decide whether the vinyl metal is reactive enough or whether it must first be transformed into an ate complex. Since most of these vinyl metals can be converted into each other with retention, this is an unusually versatile group of reagents. 

By comparison with the reactions with aromatic substrates, the absence of the driving force of rearo-matization by proton loss in electrophilic acylations of alkenes leads to competition between alternative pathways for the carbocation intermediate. In particular, capture of halide to form 3-halo ketones can become dominant. Hence, the aliphatic Friedel-Crafts acylation reaction need not necessarily result in substitution of an acyl residue for a hydrogen atom in an alkene, nor in the formation of unsaturated ketones. Indeed, within this broader scope, acylations of alkynes and some classes of alkanes can be synthetically useful. 

The procedures in Sect. 4 give some representative examples of metallation of nitriles and isonitriles and reactions of the anionic intermediates with alkylating agents, epoxides, aldehydes, and ketones. Syntheses involving the generation of anionic intermediates (mostly in small concentrations) and their immediate further reaction with an electrophile present in the medium during this generation fall beyond the scope of this book. 

The various steps in the overall sequence will here be considered individually, but only briefly, and no attempt will be made to indicate the scope of the WEH procedure which, as has already been indicated, has been widely reviewed. The aldol condensation which leads to the ions 154 is considered to be essentially reversible, a feature which has been observed in the reactions between diethyl (prop-2-enyl)phosphonate anion and aromatic aldehy-des Reversibility has also been demonstrated in a variety of other reactions that include crossover experiments, based on the system from benzaldehyde and 153 (Z = CN or COOMe) into which a more electrophilic aldehyde is added this results in the incorporation of the latter into products in such a way that the dissociation of the phospho-nate-benzaldehyde adduct must have occurred The addition of an aldehyde to a deuterium-labelled adduct in the presence of NaOEt-EtOH affords a mixture of labelled and unlabelled alkenes in the ratio of ca 1 1. The product (158) from the interaction of HO (Na2C03 in Et0H-H20) and a dialkyl (a-cyanoethenyl)phosphonate decomposes into the expected alkene, but also dissociates into a carbonyl compound together with a carbanion the latter can then be trapped by the addition of a different aldehyde or ketone (Scheme 30) ... 

A particularly difficult situation arises when combining in the same reaction the use of these rather unreactive acceptors such as enones with the incorporation of ketones as Michael donors in which the formation of the intermediate enamine by condensation with the amine catalyst is much more difficult. For this reason, the organocatalytic Michael addition of ketones to enones still remains rather unexplored. An example has been outlined in Scheme 2.22, in which it has been shown that pyrrolidine-sulfonamide 3a could catalyze the Michael reaction between cyclic ketones and enones with remarkably good results, although the reaction scope was exclusively studied for the case of cyclic six-membered ring ketones as nucleophiles and 1,4-diaryl substituted enones as electrophiles. In this system the authors also pointed toward a mechanism involving exclusively enamine-type activation of the nucleophile, with no contribution of any intermediate iminium species which could eventually activate the electrophile. Surprisingly, the use of primary amines as catalysts in this transformation has not been already considered. 

With respect to the substrate scope, ketones are the most efficient nucleophiles although the intermolecular reaction works also well for esters, amides and Weinreb amides (Fig. 2.7). Regarding the Michael acceptor, enones are the best electrophiles with a wide range of substituents tolerated (alkyl, aryl and heteroaryl ketones). a,p-Unsaturated esters, in the case of the intermolecular cyclopropanation, and a,p-unsaturated diimides for the intramolecular reaction, extends the substrate scope of the process (Fig. 2.7). A transition state model for the intramolecular cyclopropanation reaction has been proposed as depicted in Scheme 2.38 for catalyst 65 [106d]. In this model the ammonium salt adopts a conformation that gives the Z-enolate of the nucleophile on deprotonation with the base. The intramolecular conjugate addition of the enolate then takes place through a boat-type transition state. 

---