Mitsunobu reaction, alkylation from alcohols

N 0 Me 0 From hydroxymethyl polystyrene by treatment with COClj, HjNNHCOjMe and NBS or Cl,.2i Mitsunobu reactions esters from carboxylic acids and alcohols lactones from hydroxy acids A/-aUcylation of phthalimides, a-alkylation of cyanoacetate carbodiimides from thioureas. ... 

Knight and Leese examined a number of bis-protected, activated hydroxylamine equivalents. Useful protecting groups were Z, alloc, troc, and teoc. Hydroxylamine equivalents incorporating two different protecting groups were also examined. All of these compounds underwent Mitsunobu reactions with simple alcohols to provide the alkylated adducts in 30-80% yield, with the lower yields arising from reaction with cyclohexanol. 

Intermolecular reactions of hydroxylamines with secondary alkyl halides and mesylates proceed slower than with alkyl triflates and may not provide sufficiently good yield and/or stereoselectivity. A nseful alternative for these reactions is application of more reactive anions of 0-alkylhydroxamic acids or 0-alkoxysulfonamides ° like 12 (equation 8) as nucleophiles. The resulting Af,0-disubstituted hydroxamic acids or their sulfamide analogs of type 13 can be readily hydrolyzed to the corresponding hydroxylamines. The same strategy is also helpful for synthesis of hydroxylamines from sterically hindered triflates and from chiral alcohols (e.g. 14) through a Mitsunobu reaction (equation 9). 

N-Alkyl amides or imides can also be prepared starting from alcohols by treatment of the latter with equimolar amounts of the amide or imide, Ph3P, and diethyl azodicarboxylate (EtOOCN=NCOOEt) at room temperature (the Mitsunobu reaction, see p. 396).925... 

Alternatively, alkyl aryl ethers can be prepared from support-bound aliphatic alcohols by Mitsunobu etherification with phenols (Table 7.13). In this variant of the Mit-sunobu reaction, the presence of residual methanol or ethanol is less critical than in the etherification of support-bound phenols, because no dialkyl ethers can be generated by the Mitsunobu reaction. For this reason, good results will also be obtained if the reaction mixture is allowed to warm upon mixing DEAD and the phosphine. Both triphenyl- and tributylphosphine can be used as the phosphine component. Tributyl-phosphine is a liquid and generally does not give rise to insoluble precipitates. This reagent must, however, be handled with care because it readily ignites in air when absorbed on paper. 

Isothioureas can be prepared on insoluble supports by S-alkylation or S-arylation of thioureas (Entry 7, Table 14.6). Further methods for the preparation of isothioureas on insoluble supports include the N-alkylation of polystyrene-bound, A/,/V -di(alkoxy-carbonyl)isothioureas with aliphatic alcohols by Mitsunobu reaction (Entry 7, Table 14.6) and the addition of thiols to resin-bound carbodiimides [7]. Resin-bound dithio-carbamates, which can easily be prepared from Merrifield resin, carbon disulfide, and amines [76], react with phosgene to yield chlorothioformamidines, which can be converted into isothioureas by treatment with amines (Entry 8, Table 14.6). The conversion of support-bound a-amino acids into thioureas can be accompanied by the release of thiohydantoins into solution (see Section 15.9). The rate of this cyclization depends, however, on the type of linker used and on the nucleophilicity of the intermediate thiourea. 

HSAB is particularly useful for assessing the reactivity of ambident nucleophiles or electrophiles, and numerous examples of chemoselective reactions given throughout this book can be explained with the HSAB principle. Hard electrophiles, for example alkyl triflates, alkyl sulfates, trialkyloxonium salts, electron-poor car-benes, or the intermediate alkoxyphosphonium salts formed from alcohols during the Mitsunobu reaction, tend to alkylate ambident nucleophiles at the hardest atom. Amides, enolates, or phenolates, for example, will often be alkylated at oxygen by hard electrophiles whereas softer electrophiles, such as alkyl iodides or electron-poor alkenes, will preferentially attack amides at nitrogen and enolates at carbon. 

Another approach to the preparation of iV-alkyl derivatives 26 is the Mitsunobu reaction. The Mitsunobu procedure is now a well-known method for preparing amines from alcohols using acidic imide derivatives as a nitrogen nucleophile < 198IS 1, 19960PP127>. The remarkably high acidity of l,2,4-dithiazolidine-3,5-dione 12 (pA), 2.8) <2000SL1622>... 

The Mitsunobu reaction was discussed in Chapter 17, p. 000. Mitsunobu chemistry involves using a phosphorus atom to remove the OH group, after the style of PBrs as a reagent to make alkyl bromides from alcohols. 

The Mitsunobu reaction proved to be useful for the synthesis of aryl alkyl ethers from alcohols and phenols. The method proceeds under mild conditions and tolerates many functional groups with inversion of configuration, as exemplified by the reactions of lactate and ewrfo-5-norbornen-2-ol (equations 4 and Neighboring group participation,... 

Nitriles from alcohols Using this reagent as a donor in the Mitsunobu reaction uccessfully completes the preparation of alkyl nitriles. 

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