2- Methoxy-1 -naphthamides

This was our initial plan, and we set about making the starting materials 37 or 87. We used the cumyl group as a readily removable bulky protecting substituent, but we found that while the amide 85 could be readily, if slowly, benzylated, it was surprisingly much harder to alkylate with a p-methoxy substituted benzyl halide than its naphthamide... 

The dimerization of thioformylketene was investigated by B3LYP and G3MP2B3 methods. The 4 + 4-pathway has the lowest energy barrier and calculations suggest that the reaction is pseudopericyclic.231 The stereospecific intramolecular 4 + 4-cycloaddition reaction between cyclohexadiene iron tricarbonyl complex and appended dienes (198) generates cyclooctadiene tricyclic adducts (199) (Scheme 56).232 The first example of an asymmetric intermolecular 4 + 4-photocycloaddition reaction in solution between 9-cyanoanthracene and chiral 2-methoxy-l-naphthamides has been reported. The frozen chirality is effectively transferred to the optically active product.233... 

Crotonates bearing an atropisomeric 1-naphthamide moiety can be reacted in a Sml2-mediated reductive coupling with a variety of aldehydes to yield enantiomerically enriched 7-butyrolactones. The crotonate derived from 2-hydroxy-8-methoxy-Tnaphthamide reacted with pentanal to afford the highest ee of >99% in a combined yield of 90% with a cisltrans-mt o of 90 10. The chiral crotonate can also be linked to a Rink amide resin with the C-8 oxygen, and in the solid-phase reaction the same level of axial-to-central chirality transfer was obtained (Equation 103) <2006JOC2445>. 

The yields of the isocyanates produced upon photolysis of benzoyl azide (R=Ph, 31b) and its pam-methoxy, para-chloro and meta- uoro derivatives were found to be in the range of 40-50% in both inert solvents and in solvents that intercept acylnitrenes. Similar results were obtained for 2-naphthoyl azide (35). Irradiation of 35 in cyclohexane at room temperature produces isocyanate (36, -45%), A-cyclohexyl-2-naphthamide - the product of 2-naphthoylnitrene (37) insertion (-50%), and a trace (<1%) of 2-naphthamide (38). Therefore, it was concluded that carbonylnitrenes (R-CO-N) do not rearrange to isocyanates (R-N=C=0) at a rate that is competitive with their capture by trapping agents. ... 

---