Methylene compound, aldol reaction

The term Knoevenagel reaction however is used also for analogous reactions of aldehydes and ketones with various types of CH-acidic methylene compounds. The reaction belongs to a class of carbonyl reactions, that are related to the aldol reaction. The mechanism is formulated by analogy to the latter. The initial step is the deprotonation of the CH-acidic methylene compound 2. Organic bases like amines can be used for this purpose a catalytic amount of amine usually suffices. A common procedure, that uses pyridine as base as well as solvent, together with a catalytic amount of piperidine, is called the Doebner modification of the Knoevenagel reaction. 

The reactive 3-carbonyl group in compounds of type (279) undergoes aldol condensation with active methylene compounds such reactions of isatin with indoxyl, oxindole (Section 3.3.2.5.4) and with thiophenes (Section 3.3.1.5.7.ii) have already been mentioned. These compounds also react with Grignard reagents and phosphorus halides as expected, e.g. isatin (279 Z = NH) with MeMgBr and PC13 yields (285) and (286), respectively. 

Aldol Addition and Related Reactions. Procedures that involve the formation and subsequent reaction of anions derived from active methylene compounds constitute a very important and synthetically useful class of organic reactions. Perhaps the most common are those reactions in which the anion, usually called an enolate, is formed by removal of a proton from the carbon atom alpha to the carbonyl group. Addition of this enolate to another carbonyl of an aldehyde or ketone, followed by protonation, constitutes aldol addition, for example... 

Formaldehyde condenses with itself in an aldol-type reaction to yield lower hydroxy aldehydes, hydroxy ketones, and other hydroxy compounds the reaction is autocatalytic and is favored by alkaline conditions. Condensation with various compounds gives methylol (—CH2OH) and methylene (=CH2) derivatives. The former are usually produced under alkaline or neutral conditions, the latter under acidic conditions or in the vapor phase. In the presence of alkahes, aldehydes and ketones containing a-hydrogen atoms undergo aldol reactions with formaldehyde to form mono- and polymethylol derivatives. Acetaldehyde and 4 moles of formaldehyde give pentaerythritol (PE) ... 

Classical Aldol. Aldol reaction is an important reaction for creating carbon-carbon bonds. The condensation reactions of active methylene compounds such as acetophenone or cyclohexanone with aryl aldehydes under basic or acidic conditions gave good yields of aldols along with the dehydration compounds in water.237 The presence of surfactants led mainly to the dehydration reactions. The most common solvents for aldol reactions are ethanol, aqueous ethanol, and water.238 The two-phase system, aqueous sodium hydroxide-ether, has been found to be excellent for the condensation reactions of reactive aliphatic aldehydes.239... 

A one pot formation and purification of a 5-arylidine 4-thiazolidinone library has also been reported using polymer scavenging as the principle method of purification. An automated synthesizer was employed to make a parallel array of 4080 4-thiazolidinones, prepared simultaneously from a 3-component condensation of mercaptoacetic acid with an amine and a carbonyl compound. Further structural decoration was then introduced using the libraries from libraries principle where the core template was derivatized via an aldol reaction with a second carbonyl unit at the 5-methylene position (Scheme 2.57) [84]. After both synthetic steps. 

The Knoevenagel condensation is a cross-aldol condensation of a carbonyl compound with an active methylene compound leading to C-C bond formation (Scheme 7). This reaction has wide application in the synthesis of fine chemicals and is classically catalyzed by bases in solution (146,147). 

The enolate A or the nitronate A, respectively, initially adds to the C=0 double bond of the aldehyde or the ketone. The primary product in both cases is an atkoxide, D, which contains a fairly strong C,H acid, namely, of an active-methylene compound or of a nitroalkane, respectively. Hence, intermediate D is protonated at the atkoxide oxygen and the C-fi atom is deprotonated to about the same extent as in the case of the respective starting materials. An OH-substituted enolate C is formed (Figures 13.52 and 13.53), which then undergoes an Elcb elimination, leading to the condensation product B. The Knoevenagel condensation and the aldol condensation have in common that both reactions consist of a sequence of an enolate hydroxy alkylation and an Elcb elimination. 

Interestingly, the reaction of active methylene compounds having a nitrile group with a,/l-unsaturated carbonyl compounds give Michael adducts without contamination by the corresponding aldol products (Eq. 61) [89-92]. Murahashi and coworkers [89-91] proposed that the addition of the C-H bond to a low-valent ruthenium constitutes the initial step. Recently, Takaya and Murahashi [94] applied their aldol and Michael addition reactions to solid-phase synthesis using polymer-supported nitriles. 

The use of C-H bonds is obviously one of the simplest and most straightforward methods in organic synthesis. From the synthetic point of view, the alkylation, alkenylation, arylation, and silylation of C-H bonds are regarded as practical tools since these reactions exhibit high selectivity, high efficiency, and are widely applicable, all of which are essential for practical organic synthesis. The hydroacylation of olefins provides unsymmetrical ketones, which are highly versatile synthetic intermediates. Transition-metal-catalyzed aldol and Michael addition reactions of active methylene compounds are now widely used for enantioselective and di-astereoselective C-C bond formation reactions under neutral conditions. 

Enones like this, with two hydrogen atoms at the end of the double bond, are called exo-methylene compounds they are very reactive, and cannot easily be made or stored. They certainly cannot be made by aldol reactions with formaldehyde alone as we have seen. The solution is to make the Mannich base, store that, and then to alkylate and eliminate only when the enone is needed. We shall see how useful this is in the Michael reaction in Chapter 29. 

The key substrates for conjugate addition are the a, 3-unsaturated carbonyl compounds. When the double bond is inside a chain or ring these compounds are available via a wide variety of routes including the aldol reaction and are generally stable intermediates that can be stored for use at wiU. When the double bond is exo to the ring or chain (exo-methylene compounds), the unhindered nature of the double bond makes them especially susceptible to attack by nucleophiles (and radicals), This reactivity is needed for conjugate additions but the compounds are unstable and polymerize or decompose rather easily,... 

For catalytic asymmetric aldol-type reactions, the transformation of the methylene compounds to a silyl enolate or a silyl ketene acetal was at one time necessary. Recently, the aldol reaction of aldehydes with non-modified ketones was realized by use of the lanthanum-Li3-trisf(/ )-bi-naphthoxidej catalyst 22 [18]. According to the proposed catalytic cycle, after abstraction of an a-proton from the ketone, the reaction between the lithium-enolate complex and the aldehyde... 

In place of active methylene compounds having a nitrile group, malonates, 13-ketoesters, 1,3-diketones, 1,1-disulfones, nitro compounds, Mel drum acid, and anthrone can also be used as the Michael donors for these ruthenium-catalyzed aldol and Michael reactions. The reaction proceeds well in acetonitrile under mild and neutral conditions (Eq. 9.59) [83]. 

The reaction sequence is called the Regitz diazo transfer and requires active methylene compounds as substrates/ Hence it is common to use formic esters to create P-carbonyl compounds from ketones or aldehydes in an aldol reaction. These are used as substrates for deformy-lative diazo transfer reactions in which the diazo group is transferred and the formyl group is removed in one concerted step. The mechanism of the deformylative diazo transfer is shown below. In this case the bulky base NaHMDS ensures deprotonation at the less-hindered a-position of 3, forming the so-called kinetic enolate 13. This enolate is formylated by ethyl formate yielding the P-formyl ketone 14, which is used as substrate in the deformylative diazo transfer. 

In the presence of NaNH2 benzylic quaternary ammonium salts generally lead to the Sommelet-Hauser rearrangement (refs. 90, 92-104). An ortho alkylation takes place via an exomethylene intermediate. If the two ortho and ortho positions are methylated, the methylene compounds can be isolated (refs. 92, 93). The first anion formed in this reaction can be trapped at a very low temperature (-80 °C) in an aldol reaction for example (ref. 103). At -30°C the isomerization and the rearrangement occur (Fig. 16). 

Acdve methylene compounds ranging in acidity from -keto esters, malonates and nitroalkanes pK = 9-13) to ketones (pATa = 16-20) can be used in the Mannich reaction. The lack of examples using simple unactivated esters (p/iTa = 25) appears to be due to their weaker acidity or to transamination and/or hydrolysis side reactions. Enolizable aldehydes have also been used in certain instances however, side products arising from subsequent aldol condensation of the resulting -amino aldehyde often occur. Best results are achieved with a-branched aldehydes, which produce Mannich bases without enolizable protons. 

The products of aldol/dehydration reactions of active methylene compounds with unsaturated aldehydes undergo in situ hetero-IMDA reaction. Reaction of 2-phenyl-5-methyl-2.4-di-hydro-3//-pyrazol-3-one with 2-(3-methyl-2-butenyloxy)benzaldehyde in acetonitrile containing catalytic 1,2-ethanediammonium diacetate gave the products of a highly stereoselective IMDA reaction82. 

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