Lithium selective coordination

To develop an additive that selectively coordinates with salt anions and frees lithium ion for conduction, McBreen and co-workers pursued a molecular design and tailor-synthesis approach that yielded several families of novel compounds based on nitrogen or boron centers with strongly electron-withdrawing substituents. 

The coordination of the ether oxygen to M1 in 94a decreases the reactivity of the M1-carbon bond towards electrophiles so that E1 is introduced selectively trans to the ether moiety. Reactions of alkynyl lithiums without coordinating substituents lead to stereorandom products. 

The high yyw-selectivity seems to be independent of the stereochemistry of the starting material, since the use of 39Z also resulted in the preferential formation of the svn-isomer in a similar ratio. To explain this, the authors proposed 5-membered cyclic benzyllithium species having a. sy 2-like carbon to which two lithium atoms coordinate from both upper and lower sites as shown in 43 (Scheme 18). Such a dilithiated species would selectively react with electrophiles from the opposite site of the O—Li substituent. Another intermediate, 44, in which the benzylic lithium is coordinated with the heteroatom, may also be considered53. Both intermediates are likely, since in each of them the steric hindrance between the phenyl group and the alkyl group is minimal. Assuming that the reaction with... 

Nakai and coworkers90 have demonstrated that the carbanion cyclization of enantio-enriched a-(homoallyloxy)alkyllithiums, prepared from the corresponding stannanes 192, proceeds with complete retention of configuration at the lithium-atom-bearing carbon centre. The obtained tetrahydrofurans 193 are formed with high trans-selectivity and without losing the enantiomeric purity. This means that the lithium might coordinate to the... 

Recent studies have suggested that coordination with a lithium cation may be responsible for the stereochemical outcome in Meyers-type enolate alkylations . In fact, the hypothesis that the diastereofacial selectivity observed in these reactions might result from specific interactions with a solvated lithium cation was already proposed in 1990 . Nevertheless, the potential influence exerted by solvation and lithium cation coordination was not supported by a series of experimental results reported by Romo and Meyers , who stated that it would appear that neither the aggregation state of the enolate nor the coordination sphere about lithium plays a major role in the observed selectivity. This contention is further supported by recent theoretical studies of Ando , who carried out a detailed analysis of the potential influence of solvated lithium cation on the stereoselective alkylation of enolates of y-butyrolactones. The results showed conclusively that complexation with lithium cation had a negligible effect on the relative stability of the transition states leading to exo and endo addition. The stereochemical outcome in the alkylation of y -butyrolactones is determined by the different torsional strain in the endo and exo TSs. 

In this latter structure, roughly depicted as (154), there are two different lithium atoms as well as two different anion residues. In one of the residues a lithium is -coordinated and in the other residue the lithium is T) -coordinated. Hie possible origins of the selectivity of the alkylations of the metallated hydiazones are discussed relative to this structure. Hie lithiated hydrazone enolate (155) prepared from (S)-(-)-l-amino-2-(methoxymethyl)pyrrolidine (SAMP) hydrazone of 2-acetylnaphthalene (156) yields the monomeric bis-THF-solvated species (157) as ruby red crystals. Hiis is one of the few examples of the crystallization of a resolved enolate substrate. ... 

Deprotonation of a-silyloxy ketones with LDA furnishes (Z)-lithium enolates, whereas treatment of ketones with n-Bu2BOTf in the presence of /-Pr2EtN gives the corresponding (Z)-(0)-boron enolates. Interestingly, reaction of the Li-enolates with r-PrCHO proceeds with opposite facial preference to that of the boron enolates. Thus, the Si face of the Li-enolate adds to the Si face of the aldehyde and the Si face of the boron enolate adds to the Re face of the aldehyde to furnish the chiral P-hydroxy ketone enantiomers shown below. The reason for the different face selectivity between the lithium enolate and the boron enolate is that lithium can coordinate with three oxygens in the aldol Zimmerman-Traxler transition state, whereas boron has only two coordination sites for oxygen. 

Based on the metal-differentiating coordination concept, proline-derived biden-tate amidophosphines 23-25 were developed. The carbonyl oxygen and phosphorus atoms of the ligand selectively coordinate to lithium and copper atoms of an organocopper species, which discriminate the reaction face of the complex as shown in 26. The reaction of dimethylcopper lithium with chalcone gave the adduct in 84% ee [52]. Enantioselectivity was later improved to 90% with the more bulky amidophosphine 25 based on the model 26 (Eq. (12.26)) [53]. 

A certain jr-facial selectivity was achieved when MCpCl2 (M = Ti, Zr) fragments were coordinated to the optically active fused cyclopentadienyl ligands. For instance, reaction of ZrCpCl3 with the lithium derivative of 126 at —78 °C gave predominantly 133 which was characterized by X-ray structural analysis [152]. 

An interesting strategy for the diastereoselective synthesis of five-membered carbocycles was achieved by the reaction of alkenylcarbene complexes and lithium enolates derived from simple methyl ketones [79]. The use of more or less coordinating solvents (THF or Et20) or the presence of cosolvents such as PMDTA allows the selective synthesis of one or the other diastereoisomer of the final cyclopentene derivative (Scheme 32). 

When a heteroatom, such as N, O, or a halogen, is present in a molecule containing an aromatic ring or a double bond, lithiation is usually quite regio-selective. The lithium usually bonds with the sp carbon closest to the hetero atom, probably because the attacking species coordinates with the hetero atom. Such reactions with compounds such as anisole are often called directed metala-tions. In the case of aromatic rings, this means attack at the ortho position.Two examples are... 

Alkylations of this type also proved to be sensitive to the cation. Good stereoselectivity (15 1) was observed for the lithium enolate, but the sodium and potassium enolates were much less selective.75 This probably reflects the weaker coordination of the latter metals. 

When the chiral molybdenum Ti-allyl-substituted enone 147 was treated with lithium dimethylcuprate, formation of adduct 148 with fair selectivity was observed (Scheme 6.29) [69]. Interestingly, higher selectivities were obtained in the presence of boron trifluoride etherate. It is assumed that Lewis acid coordination induces the s-trans reactive conformation 149 [64]. Consequently, nucleophile attack anti to the molybdenum fragment should afford the major diastereomer 148. 

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