Lewis acids direct hydride abstraction

One of the main difficulties in understanding the carbocationic nature of acid-catalyzed transformations of alkanes via the hydride abstraction mechanism was that no stoichiometric amount of hydrogen gas evolution was ever observed from the reaction mixture, although even in the early work of Nenitzescu et al. H2 gas was detected in measurable amounts. For this reason, an alternative mechanism was proposed The direct hydride abstraction by the Lewis acid [Eq, (6,10)],... 

Several reaction pathways for the cracking reaction are discussed in the literature. The commonly accepted mechanisms involve carbocations as intermediates. Reactions probably occur in catalytic cracking are visualized in Figure 4.14 [17,18], In a first step, carbocations are formed by interaction with acid sites in the zeolite. Carbenium ions may form by interaction of a paraffin molecule with a Lewis acid site abstracting a hydride ion from the alkane molecule (1), while carbo-nium ions form by direct protonation of paraffin molecules on Bronsted acid sites (2). A carbonium ion then either may eliminate a H2 molecule (3) or it cracks, releases a short-chain alkane and remains as a carbenium ion (4). The carbenium ion then gets either deprotonated and released as an olefin (5,9) or it isomerizes via a hydride (6) or methyl shift (7) to form more stable isomers. A hydride transfer from a second alkane molecule may then result in a branched alkane chain (8). The... 

If the nucleophilic site (HOMO) involves a nonbonded pair of electrons (path a), a stable covalently bonded complex will form. If the HOMO is a a bond, direct reaction is unlikely unless the bond is high in energy and sterically exposed, as in a three-membered ring, but if the bond is to H, hydride abstraction may occur (path b, steps 1 and 2) or a hydride bridge may form (path 6, step 1). The last two possibilities are discussed further in Chapter 10. If the HOMO is a n bond, a n complex may result (path c, step 1), or, more commonly, donation of the n electrons results in the formation of a a bond at the end where the n electron density was higher, the other end becoming Lewis acidic in the process (path c, steps 1 and 2). The effects of substituents on olefin reactivity were discussed in Chapter 6. 

Hydride abstraction of a hydrogen directly bonded to a metal atom has been used to synthesize cationic metal carbonyls. This may be accomplished by protonation, as outlined in Section C,l,f, or with a Lewis acid, such as boron trifluoride, in the presence of carbon monoxide (98). 

Phosphines and their derivatives are known to be very useful ligands toward transition metals and a variety of complexes with phosphine as a ligand have been prepared for all kinds of transition metals. If one of the substituents on a coordinating tertiary phosphorus compound is abstracted as an anion, it would form a cationic phosphenium complex. Actually this strategy has been widely used, and halide, hydride, and alkoxide have been abstracted as an anion by an appropriate Lewis acid. An alternative method to prepare cationic phosphenium complexes is a direct reaction of a phosphenium cation with a transition metal complex having appropriate... 

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