Limonene, formation

Willrodt, C. et al (2014) Engineering the productivity of recombinant of Escherichia coli for limonene formation from glycerol in minimal media. Biotechnol /., 9 (8), 1000-1012. 

Cycloahphatics capable of tertiary carbocation formation are candidates for nucleophilic addition of nitriles. HCN in strong sulfuric acid transforms 1-methyl-1-cyclohexanol to 1-methyl-1-cyclohexylamine through the formamide (47). The terpenes pinene (14) [2437-95-8] and limonene [5989-27-5] (15) each undergo a double addition of HCN to provide, after hydrolysis, the cycloahphatic diamine 1,8-menthanediamine (16) (48). 

Synthetic pine oil is produced by the acid-catalyzed hydration of a-pinene (Fig. 1). Mineral acids, usually phosphoric acid, are used in concentrations of 20—40 wt % and at temperatures varying from 30—100°C. Depending on the conditions used, alcohols, chiefly a-terpineol (9), are produced along with /)-menthadienes and cineoles, mainly limonene, terpinolene, and 1,4- and 1,8-cineole (46—48). Various grades of pine oil can be produced by fractionation of the cmde products. Formation of terpin hydrate (10) from a-terpineol gives P-terpineol (11) and y-terpineol (12) as a consequence of the reversible... 

Figure 27.10 Mechanism of the formation of the monoterpene limonene from geranyl diphosphate.

Both the (+)- and (-)- enantiomers of limonene were transformed by larvae of the cutworm Spodop-tera litura (Miyazawa et al. 1998). For both of them the reactions involved are (a) dihydroxylation between C-8 and C-9 and (b) oxidation of the C-1 methyl group to carboxyl. These transformations were not dependent on the intestinal microflora in contrast to the transformation of a-terpinene to p-mentha-l,3-dien-7-ol and p-cymene whose formation could be attributed to the intestinal flora. 

The activity of the FePeCli6-S/tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) catalytic system was studied under mild reaction conditions for the synthesis of three a,p-unsaturated ketones 2-cyclohexen-l-one, carvone and veibenone by allylic oxidation of cyclohexene, hmonene, and a-pinene, respectively. Substrate conversions were higher than 80% and ketone yields decreased in the following order cyclohexen-1-one (47%), verbenone (22%), and carvone (12%). The large amount of oxidized sites of monoterpenes, especially limonene, may be the reason for the lower ketone yield obtained with this substrate. Additional tests snggested that molecular oxygen can act as co-oxidant and alcohol oxidation is an intermediate step in ketone formation. 

Addition of molten sulfur to limonene in a 9 kl reactor led to a violent runaway exothermic reaction. Small scale pilot runs had not shown the possibility of this. Heating terpenes strongly with sulfur usually leads to formation of benzene derivatives with evolution of hydrogen sulfide. 

Towards the end of this section it may be worthwhile to point out some new reactions with high-valent metals and TBHP. The first is a pyridinium dichromate PDC-TBHP system134. Nonsubstituted or alkyl-substituted conjugated dienes, such as 1,3-cyclooctadiene (87) and others (also linear dienes), yield keto allyl peroxides 88 (equation 18), whereas phenyl-substituted dienes such as 1,4-diphenylbutadiene (89) gave diketo compounds, 90 (equation 19). In further research into a GIF-type system135 with iron and TBHP, limonene gave a mixture of products with carvone as the major product. The mechanism is thought to proceed initially by formation of a Fe(V)-carbon... 

Formation of dihydrotropylium ions is a key feature of the C H9+ hypersurface. Currently, efforts in our laboratory276 have concentrated on the presence of different C H9+ isomers by probing their bimolecular reactivity. Thus, gas-phase titration in the FT-ICR mass spectrometer has revealed that mixtures of C7H9+ ions are formed by protonation of 1,3,5-cycloheptatriene, 6-methylfulvene and norbomadiene as the neutral precursors but that, in contrast to the results obtained by CS mass spectrometry, fragmentation of the radical cations of limonene yields almost exclusively toluenium ions275. 

Other Heptadec-l-yl methyl sulfide Limonene 13-Me-(Z)-8-C15 formate Cholesterol 3-Pentanone... 

More recently, Bachi and coworkers extended and adapted the TOCO reaction to the synthesis of 2,3-dioxabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane derivatives hke 228 (Scheme 52) ° ° . As detailed in Scheme 53a, the bridged bicyclic hydroperoxide-endoperoxides hke 229 are obtained, from (S )-limonene (227), in a 4-component one-operation free-radical domino reaction in which 5 new bonds are sequentially formed. Particular experimental conditions are required in order to reduce the formation of by-products 230 and (PhS)2, and to favor the critical 6-exo-ring closure of peroxy-radical 231 to carbon-centered radical 232206 chemoselective reduction of bridged bicyclic hydroperoxide-endoperoxides... 

Pakdel, H., C. Roy, H. Aubin, G. Jean, and S. Coulombe, Formation of dZ-Limonene in Used Tire Vacuum Pyrolysis Oils, Environ. Sci. Technol., 25, 1646-1649(1991). 

Selective conversion of pinene, 3-carene, and limonene or dipentene to terpineol, without terpin hydrate formation, is also used. Addition of organic acids (weak acids require catalytic amounts of mineral acids) produces terpinyl esters, which are subsequently hydrolyzed to terpineol, sometimes in situ. 

Limonene and perillic acid remarkably reduced the lung metatastatic tumour nodule formation by 65 and 67%, respectively however, perillyl alcohol was considerably more potent than limonene against breast cancer [284, 302], rat mammary cancer and pancreatic tumours [288]. Phase 1 studies of d-limo-nene [303, 304] and phase I and phase II [305-311] studies of perillyl alcohol revealed dose-limiting toxicities nausea, vomiting, anorexia, unpleasant taste and eructation, and thus a maximum tolerated dose for perillyl alcohol was determined [305]. 

Fig. 4. Shelf-life of encapsulated orange oil samples, as measured by limonene oxide formation at 37°C.

Fig. 4. Shelf-life of orange oils (as measured by limonene epoxide formation) as influenced by flavor carrier. (Reproduced with permission from ref. 46. Copyright 1986 Institute of Food Technology.)...

---