Lithium carboxylic acids

Lithium aluminium hydride, LiAlH, is a very active reducing agent, and is used particularly for the ready reduction of carboxylic acids (or their esters) to primary alcohols R-COOH -> R CH,OH. 

Some di-p-tolyl ketone is produced as a by-product, presumably by Interaction of the lithium salt of the carboxylic acid with the aryl lithium ... 

The most general synthetic route to ketones uses the reaction of carboxylic acids (or their derivatives) or nitriles with organometallic compounds (M.J. Jorgenson, 1970). Lithium car-boxylates react with organolithium compounds to give stable gem-diolates, which are decom-... 

The conversion of carboxylic acid derivatives (halides, esters and lactones, tertiary amides and lactams, nitriles) into aldehydes can be achieved with bulky aluminum hydrides (e.g. DIBAL = diisobutylaluminum hydride, lithium trialkoxyalanates). Simple addition of three equivalents of an alcohol to LiAlH, in THF solution produces those deactivated and selective reagents, e.g. lithium triisopropoxyalanate, LiAlH(OPr )j (J. Malek, 1972). 

The less hindered f/ans-olefins may be obtained by reduction with lithium or sodium metal in liquid ammonia or amine solvents (Birch reduction). This reagent, however, attacks most polar functional groups (except for carboxylic acids R.E.A. Dear, 1963 J. Fried, 1968), and their protection is necessary (see section 2.6). 

Reductions carried out with lithium aluminium hydride are not always so successful. As noted by Sprague (46) the esters of 2-aminothiazole carboxylic acids behave somewhat differently with AlLiH4 (55). 

Carboxylic acids are exceedingly difficult to reduce Acetic acid for example is often used as a solvent in catalytic hydrogenations because it is inert under the reaction con ditions A very powerful reducing agent is required to convert a carboxylic acid to a pri mary alcohol Lithium aluminum hydride is that reducing agent... 

Sodium borohydride is not nearly as potent a hydride donor as lithium aluminum hydride and does not reduce carboxylic acids... 

Lithium aluminum hydride reduction (Sec tion 15 3) Carboxylic acids are reduced to primary alcohols by the powerful reducing agent lithium aluminum hydride... 

In most other reactions the azolecarboxylic acids and their derivatives behave as expected (cf. Scheme 52) (37CB2309), although some acid chlorides can be obtained only as hydrochlorides. Thus imidazolecarboxylic acids show the normal reactions they can be converted into hydrazides, acid halides, amides and esters, and reduced by lithium aluminum hydride to alcohols (70AHC(12)103). Again, thiazole- and isothiazole-carboxylic acid derivatives show the normal range of reactions. 

Properly substituted isoxazolecarboxylic acids can be converted into esters, acid halides, amides and hydrazides, and reduced by lithium aluminum hydride to alcohols. For example, 3-methoxyisoxazole-5-carboxylic acid (212) reacted with thionyl chloride in DMF to give the acid chloride (213) (74ACS(B)636). Ethyl 3-ethyl-5-methylisoxazole-4-carboxylate (214) was reduced with LAH to give 3-ethyl-4-hydroxymethyl-5-methylisoxazole (215) (7308(53)70). 

Lithium aryls react as typical carbanions in nonpolar solvents giving carboxylic acids with CO2... 

Both 1- (5) and 2-fluoronaphthalene (9) yield with phenyl-lithium the same (Mymmetrical aryne (6) after subsequent carbona-tion, mixtures containing l-phenylnaphthalene-2-carboxylic acid (7) and 2-phenylnaphthalene-l-carboxylic acid (8) in the ratio 1 1.7 were... 

A complementary method is the Kochi reaction. This reaction is especially useful for the generation of secondary and tertiary alkyl chlorides through decarboxylation of carboxylic acids, where the classical method may not work. As reagents, lead tetraacetate and lithium chloride are then employed ... 

The Rosenmund reduction is usually applied for the conversion of a carboxylic acid into the corresponding aldehyde via the acyl chloride. Alternatively a carboxylic acid may be reduced with lithium aluminum hydride to the alcohol, which in turn may then be oxidized to the aldehyde. Both routes require the preparation of an intermediate product and each route may have its advantages over the other, depending on substrate structure. 

A setup similar to the preceding one is used in this experiment except that provision should be made for heating the reaction vessel (steam bath, oil bath, or mantle). Lithium aluminum hydride (10 g, 0.26 mole) is dissolved in 200 ml of dry -butyl ether and heated with stirring to 100°. A solution of 9.1 g (0.05 mole) of ra j-9-decalin-carboxylic acid (Chapter 16, Section I) in 100 ml of dry -butyl ether is added dropwise over about 30 minutes. The stirring and heating are continued for 4 days, after which the mixture is cooled and water is slowly added to decompose excess hydride. Dilute hydrochloric acid is added to dissolve the salts, and the ether layer is separated, washed with bicarbonate solution then water, and dried. The solvent is removed by distillation, and the residue is recrystallized from aqueous ethanol, mp 77-78°, yield 80-95 %. 

Note that the diorganocopper reaction occurs only with acid chlorides. Carboxylic acids, esters, acid anhydrides, and amides do not react with lithium diorganocopper reagents. 

Alpha hydrogen atoms of carbonyl compounds are weakly acidic and can be removed by strong bases, such as lithium diisopropylamide (LDA), to yield nucleophilic enolate ions. The most important reaction of enolate ions is their Sn2 alkylation with alkyl halides. The malonic ester synthesis converts an alkyl halide into a carboxylic acid with the addition of two carbon atoms. Similarly, the acetoacetic ester synthesis converts an alkyl halide into a methyl ketone. In addition, many carbonyl compounds, including ketones, esters, and nitriles, can be directly alkylated by treatment with LDA and an alkyl halide. 

Lithium aluminum hydride, reaction with aldehydes, 610 reaction with carboxylic acids. 611-612... 

The next major obstacle is the successful deprotection of the fully protected palytoxin carboxylic acid. With 42 protected functional groups and eight different protecting devices, this task is by no means trivial. After much experimentation, the following sequence and conditions proved successful in liberating palytoxin carboxylic acid 32 from its progenitor 31 (see Scheme 10) (a) treatment with excess 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-l,4-benzoquinone (DDQ) in ie/t-butanol/methylene chloride/phosphate buffer pH 7.0 (1 8 1) under sonication conditions, followed by peracetylation (for convenience of isolation) (b) exposure to perchloric acid in aqueous tetrahydrofuran for eight days (c) reaction with dilute lithium hydroxide in H20-MeOH-THF (1 2 8) (d) treatment with tetra-n-butylammonium fluoride (TBAF) in tetrahydrofuran first, and then in THF-DMF and (e) exposure to dilute acetic acid in water (1 350) at 22 °C. The overall yield for the deprotection sequence (31 —>32) is ca. 35 %. 

Eq. (3), with lithium diisopropylamide (LDA) to a lithiospecies and in its subsequent reaction with C02 affording via the corresponding 4-carboxylic acid its ethyl ester 59. In the alternative version perchlorate 48e is electro-chemically reduced in acetonitrile to an anionic species that was converted either to a 3 1 mixture of isomers 56 (R = f-Bu) and 60 or to 4//-thiopyran 56 (R = PhCH2) with f-BuI or PhCH2Br, respectively (90ACS524). The kinetics of the benzylation procedure was followed by cyclic voltammetry [88ACS(B)269]. 

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