Lithium organolithium compounds

CH3)2N]3P0. M.p. 4°C, b.p. 232"C, dielectric constant 30 at 25 C. Can be prepared from dimethylamine and phosphorus oxychloride. Used as an aprotic solvent, similar to liquid ammonia in solvent power but easier to handle. Solvent for organolithium compounds, Grignard reagents and the metals lithium, sodium and potassium (the latter metals give blue solutions). 

Many organolithium compounds may be prepared by the interaction of lithium with an alkyl chloride or bromide or with an aryl bromide in dry ethereal solution In a nitrogen atmosphere ... 

Many organic halides do not react satisfactorily with lithium to form RLi ecMnpounds or with metallic magnesium to form Grignard reagents. The desired organolithium compound can often be prepared by a halogen-metal interconversion reaction ... 

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-... 

Deuterolysis of the organolithium compounds was used to characterize the three deuterated thiazoles corresponding to the three lithium derivatives. 

Other Organolithium Compounds. Organoddithium compounds have utiHty in anionic polymerization of butadiene and styrene. The lithium chain ends can then be converted to useflil functional groups, eg, carboxyl, hydroxyl, etc (139). Lewis bases are requHed for solubdity in hydrocarbon solvents. 

Lithium ion is commonly ingested at dosages of 0.5 g/d of lithium carbonate for treatment of bipolar disorders. However, ingestion of higher concentrations (5 g/d of LiCl) can be fatal. As of this writing, lithium ion has not been related to industrial disease. However, lithium hydroxide, either dHectly or formed by hydrolysis of other salts, can cause caustic bums, and skin contact with lithium haHdes can result in skin dehydration. Organolithium compounds are often pyrophoric and requHe special handling (53). 

Heptafluoro-2-naphthyllithiuni prepared by metalation reaction can thermally decompose to a hexafluoro-l,2-naphlhalyne by elimination of lithium fluoride [36, 37] In this organolithium compound, fluorine elimination can occur from either position 1 or 3, however, no evidence for fluorine elimination from position 3 IS observed... 

With a difluoroethylene containing hydrogen and chlonne, where both groups can be replaced by lithium, a mixture of two organolithium compounds is formed in a 2 1 ratio, indicating a more facile replacement of chlorine [63] (equation 30)... 

Organolithium compounds are sometimes prepared in hydrocarbon solvents such as pentane and hexane, but nonnally diethyl ether is used. It is especially important that the solvent be anhydrous. Even trace amounts of water or alcohols react with lithium to form insoluble lithium hydroxide or lithium alkoxides that coat the surface of the metal and prevent it from reacting with the alkyl halide. Furthennore, organolithium reagents are strong bases and react rapidly with even weak proton sources to fonn hydrocarbons. We shall discuss this property of organolithium reagents in Section 14.5. 

Organolithium reagents (Section 14.3) Lithium metal reacts with organic halides to produce organolithium compounds. The organic halide may be alkyl, alkenyl, or aryl. Iodides react most and fluorides least readily bromides are used most often. Suitable solvents include hexane, diethyl ether, and tetrahy-drofuran. 

Organolithium compounds can readily be prepared from metallic Li and this is one of the major uses of the metal. Because of the great reactivity both of the reactants and the products, air and moisture must be rigorously excluded by use of an inert atmosphere. Lithium can be reacted directly with alkyl halides in light petroleum, cyclohexane, benzene or ether, the chlorides generally being preferred ... 

A more promising procedure for the formation of alkenes from tosylhydrazones is represented by the Shapiro reaction It differs from the Bamford-Stevens reaction by the use of an organolithium compound (e.g. methyl lithium) as a strongly basic reagent ... 

This type of metallic exchange is used much less often than 12-32 and 12-33. It is an equilibrium reaction and is useful only if the equilibrium lies in the desired direction. Usually the goal is to prepare a lithium compound that is not prepared easily in other ways, for example, a vinylic or an allylic lithium, most commonly from an organotin substrate. Examples are the preparation of vinyllithium from phenyl-lithium and tetravinyltin and the formation of a-dialkylamino organolithium compounds from the corresponding organotin compounds ... 

Quinquecovalent phosphoranes readily undergo ligand exchange on treatment with organolithium compounds. With alkyl-lithiums the resulting alkylphosphoranes give alkylidenephosphoranes, e.g. (2), by loss of benzene. 

The crystal structures of many organolithium compounds have been determined.44 Phenyllithium has been crystallized as an ether solvate. The structure is tetrameric with lithium and carbon atoms at alternating corners of a highly distorted cube. The lithium atoms form a tetrahedron and the carbons are associated with the faces of the tetrahedron. Each carbon is 2.33 A from the three neighboring lithium atoms and an ether molecule is coordinated to each lithium atom. Figures 7.2a and b show, respectively, the Li-C cluster and the complete array of atoms, except for hydrogen 45 Section 6.2 of Part A provides additional information on the structure of organolithium compounds. 

Organolithium compounds can add to a, (3-unsaturated ketones by either 1,2- or 1,4-addition. The most synthetically important version of the 1,4-addition involves organocopper intermediates, and is discussed in Chap 8. However, 1,4-addition is observed under some conditions even in the absence of copper catalysts. Highly reactive organolithium reagents usually react by 1,2-addition, but the addition of small amounts of HMPA has been found to favor 1,4-addition. This is attributed to solvation of the lithium ion, which attenuates its Lewis acid character toward the carbonyl oxygen.111... 

---