Malonates conjugate additions

Diethyl malonate adds to diethyl fumarate in a conjugate addition reaction promoted by sodium ethoxide in dry ethanol to give a tetraester, Diethyl fumarate is an excellent Michael acceptor because two ester groups withdraw electrons from the alkene, The mechanism involves deprotonation of the malonate, conjugate addition, and reprotonation of the product enolate by ethanol solvent, In this reaction two ester groups stabilize the enolate and two more promote conjugate addition. 

Stabilized anions exhibit a pronounced tendency to undergo conjugate addition to a p unsaturated carbonyl compounds This reaction called the Michael reaction has been described for anions derived from p diketones m Section 18 13 The enolates of ethyl acetoacetate and diethyl malonate also undergo Michael addition to the p carbon atom of a p unsaturated aldehydes ketones and esters For example... 

A Michael reaction involves the conjugate addition of a stable enolate ion donor to an o,/3-unsaturated carbonyl acceptor, yielding a 1,5-dicarbonyl product. Usually, the stable enolate ion is derived from a /3-diketone, jS-keto ester, malonic ester, or similar compound. The C—C bond made in the conjugate addition step is the one between the a carbon of the acidic donor and the (3 carbon of the unsaturated acceptor. 

Similar results are observed in the conjugative addition of CH-acidic methylene compounds with the metal derivatives of 2-nitro-5,10,15.20-tetraphenylporphyrin (6). The nickel porphyrin 6 (M = Ni) yields with an excess of dimethyl malonate the cyclopropane derivative 7 whereas the copper porphyrin 6 (M — Cu) forms with two equivalents of malononitrile the bisadduct 8.111... 

Feringa and co-workers applied chiral phosphoramidite ligand (S,R,R)-67 in the conjugate addition of dimethylzinc to acyclic unsaturated malonates 68 and obtained up to 98% ee (Scheme 22).71... 

Bond constructions similar to those just discussed can be achieved using an alkylidene malonate which is tethered to an alkyl bromide [72]. Of particular interest in this context is the controlled potential reductive cyclization of 263. As illustrated, the method provides a reasonably facile and modestly efficient entry to cyclobutanes 264. Presumably, the process is initiated by reduction of the alkylidene malonate rather than the alkyl halide, since alkyl bromides are more difficult to reduce. The same substrate, when reduced with L-Selectride undergoes conjugate addition of hydride and a subsequent cyclization leading to the five-membered ring 265. The latter transformation constitutes an example of a MIRC reaction [71-73], a process which is clearly complementary to the... 

As previously noted (Scheme 1), prior to the explosion of interest in iminium ion catalysis as a platform for the activation of a,P-unsaturated carbonyl compounds in 2000, Yamaguchi [29-33] and Taguchi [34] showed that proline derived bi-func-tional catalysts could provide an effective platform for the ion-pair controlled conjugate addition of malonates and nitroalkanes to a, 3-unsaturated ketones with good levels of stereocontrol. 

Scheme 20 Conjugate addition of dibenzyl malonate to a, P-unsaturated ketones...

Barbas developed this procedure further by introducing an asymmetric three-component Michael reaction that should be applicable to many other conjugate addition reactions. He used a Wittig olefmation to prepare, in situ, an a,P-unsatu-rated ketone that subsequently underwent a conjugate addition with malonates (Scheme 21) [94]. The rate of the conjugate addition process was observed to be considerably faster than the analogous reaction reported by Jprgensen which was attributed to the presence of triphenylphosphine oxide within the reaction mixture. 

Use of a,P-unsaturated aldehydes as the substrate allows for a more efficient conjugate addition of malonates, reaction times being reduced to 96 h. The optimal reaction conditions involved addition of the malonate (1.0 equivalents) to an eth-anolic solution of the a,P-unsaturated aldehyde (2.0 equivalents) at 0 °C in the... 

Scheme 23 Conjugate addition of malonates to a, 3-unsaturated aldehydes...

The disulfide dimers of 2-aminothiophenols have also been used in the syntheses of benzothiazines. In this case, nitrogen acts as a nucleophile and sulfur as an electrophile. Reagents that have nucleophilic carbons adjacent to an electrophilic carbon can be reacted with these disulfides. Examples include a,(3-unsaturated esters that undergo conjugate addition followed by enolate addition to sulfur (Equation 86) <1983J(P1)567>, and 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds such as ethyl acetoacetate <2005AXEo2716> and dimethyl malonate <2006ARK(xv)68> (Scheme 63). 

Using these optimized conditions, the conjugate addition of 45 to the malonates 49 in the presence of the solid base provided access to the Michael adducts in good yields and high diastereoselectivities. The removal of the chiral TADDOL auxiliary could be accomplished without epimerization or racemization in this case, too. After esterification of the very polar acid intermediates with diazomethane the corresponding dimethyl esters 52 were obtained with yields of 72-94% and enantiomeric excesses ee of 84-94% (Scheme 1.1.13). 

The most reactive Michael acceptors, such as alkylidene malonates, gem-dicyanoalkenes and nitroalkenes, react with a-halozinc esters in a conjugate fashion. Beautiful examples were offered by two stereocontrolled conjugate additions to piperidinone 102 and pyrro-lidinone 104 leading to optically active bicyclic lactams 103147 (equation 60) and 105 (equation 61)148. With these electron-poor alkenes a Grignard two-step protocol is to be adopted in order to avoid the single electron transfer reactions from the metal to the Michael acceptor, which should afford olefin dimers. The best solvent is found to be a... 

Asymmetric conjugate addition is a powerful method for the construction of ternary stereogenic centers. Erick Carreria of the ETH-Honggerberg, Zurich reports (Organic Lett. 2004,6,2281) the chiral-auxiliary mediated conjugate addition of alkynes to alkylidene malonate derivatives such as 1, to give, after hydrolysis and decarboxylation, the enantiomerically-enriched acid 3. 

The first asymmetric iron-catalyzed conjugate addition was reported in 1977. Benzylidene malonate 56 with an ephedrine moiety as chiral auxiliary was converted with Grignard reagents such as nBuMgBr in the presence of catalytic amounts of various metal salts. The optically active phenylpropionic acid 57 was obtained with... 

A similar tendency is also observed in the asymmetric conjugate addition of nitromethane to a,p-unsaturated malonate (Scheme 5.38), with the chiral conjugate adduct being transformed to (R)-Rolipram (Scheme 5.39) [39a]. 

The 1,4-addition (or conjugate addition) of resonance-stabilized carbanions. The Michael Addition is thermodynamically controlled the reaction donors are active methylenes such as malonates and nitroalkanes, and the acceptors are activated olefins such as a,P-unsaturated carbonyl compounds. 

Conjugate addition of vinyl cuprate and dimethyl malonate to 4,4-dimethylcyclo-hexa-2,5-dienones has allowed facile access to mono- and bis-adducts in good yields. Whereas the high diastereoselectivity to afford trans-bis-adducts was predictable,... 

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