Methyl cations nitrogen oxides

With TAA salts of small alkyl groups (e.g., ethyl, methyl), cation reduction is usually the limiting cathodic reaction. The anodic limiting reaction for ammonium ions is their oxidation to nitrogen and protons. It should be emphasized that atmospheric contaminants are supposed to influence the above cathodic and anodic limits of liquid ammonia, as they do for the other nonaqueous systems discussed in the previous sections. 

Iron(III) complexes of 2-acetylpyridine Af-oxide iV-methyl- and 3-azabicyclo[3.2.2.]nonylthiosemicarbazone, 24 and 25, respectively, have been isolated from both iron(III) perchlorate and chloride [117], The perchlorate salt yields low spin, octahedral, monovalent, cationic complexes involving two deprotonated, tridentate thiosemicarbazone ligands coordinated via the N-oxide oxygen, azomethine nitrogen and thiol sulfur based on infrared spectral studies. Their powder ESR g-values are included in Table 1 and indicate that bonding is less covalent than for the analogous thiosemicarbazones prepared from 2-acetylpyridine, 3a and 4. Starting with iron (III) chloride, compounds with the same cations, but with tetrachloroferrate(III) anions, were isolated. 

Radical cations are strongly oxidizing intermediates, but also after deprotonation at a heteroatom (in the present systems at nitrogen) some of this oxidizing property remains. Thus a common feature of these intermediates is that they are readily reduced by good electron donors. Since the heteroatom-centered radicals and the radical cations are always in equilibrium, it is, at least in principle, possible that such intermediates react with water at another site (canonical mesomelic form), that is at carbon. This reaction leads to OH-adduct radicals. Although deprotonation at a heteroatom is usually faster (but also reversible) than deprotonation at carbon, the latter reaction is typically "irreversible". This also holds for a deprotonation at methyl (in Thy). 

The reaction has been used to synthesize libraries of benzonaphthyridines 196, in high diastereoselectivity, from the cycloaddition of 1,4-dihydrop3Tidines with imines formed from aldehydes and anilines. When cyclic enol ethers were used as dienophUes, mixtures of diastereomers 197 were obtained. These compounds were oxidized to the corresponding quinolines 198 and were further transformed to the quinolinium salts 199 as shown in Scheme 36 [76]. Compounds 196 and 198 were tested for their ability to inhibit human propyl oligopeptidase (POP) and were found to have modest potencies. Much better results were obtained when the quinoline nitrogen was methylated to provide adducts 199. The cationic center improved the inhibitory activity of these compounds (Fig. 23). 

Ammonium salts with two different alkyl chains were prepared directly via subsequent alkylations of dimethylamine with primary bromides and crystallization. Commercial hexadecyl-methylamine can be conveniently applied in the same way in order to convey functionality to cationic synkinons. A recent example describes subsequent alkylations with a small functional and a long-chain primary bromide (Scheme 2.4). A-acylated / -phenylenediamine was also alkylated at the second nitrogen atom which had two different alkyl chains, with or without extra functionality . After deacylation, this head group can be diazotized or coupled oxidatively with various heterocycles in water (Scheme 2.4). Photoactive and coloured membrane surfaces are thus obtained. Phenylene-diamine, pyridine and in particular A-methyl-4,4-bipyridinium chloride are relatively weak nucleophiles. Substitution of bromides is slow and the more reactive iodides can rarely be obtained commercially, but the selection of nitromethanes as solvent for bromide substitution is of great help as well as the addition of sodium iodide to enforce a Finkelstein reaction or a combination of both. 

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