Nitriles, preparation from halides

There are several functional group transformations in this chapter. Amines have been prepared from halides, nitriles, amides, or ketones/aldehydes, as... 

A new one-pot procedure for the direct conversion of primary alcohols into the corresponding nitriles avoids drawbacks associated with previous methodology (Scheme 28). Nitriles are prepared from halides in good yield via the use of polymer-supported cyanide. ... 

Because nitriles can be prepared from alkyl halides by nucleophilic substitution with cyanide ion the overall process RX RC=N RCH2NH2 leads to primary amines that have one more carbon atom than the starting alkyl halide... 

Replacement of one of the phenyl groups by an alkyl group of similar bulk, on the other hand, alters the biologic activity in this series. Alkylation of phenylacetonitrile with isopropyl bromide affords the substituted nitrile, 136. Treatment of the anion prepared from 136 with strong base with 2-dimethylamino-l-chloropropane gives isoaminile (137). It is of note that alkylation of this halide, isomeric with that used in the early methadone synthesis, is apparently unaccompanied by isomer formation. Isoaminile is an agent with antitussive activity. 

Carboxylic acids can be prepared from nitriles by reaction with hot aqueous acid or base by a mechanism that we ll see in Section 20.9. Since nitriles themselves are usually made by Sts 2 reaction of a primary or secondary7 alkyl halide with CN , the two-step sequence of cyanide displacement followed by nitiile hydrolysis is a good way to make a carboxylic acid from an alkyl halide (RBr —> RC=N RC02H). 

The following carboxylic acid can t be prepared from an alkyl halide by either the nitrile hydrolysis route or the Grignard carboxylation route. Explain. 

As we know, the Grignard reagents and nitriles ean be prepared from alkyl halides (refer Unit 10, Class XII). The above methods... 

Cross coupling between an aryl halide and an activated alkyl halide, catalysed by the nickel system, is achieved by controlling the rate of addition of the alkyl halide to the reaction mixture. When the aryl halide is present in excess, it reacts preferentially with the Ni(o) intermediate whereas the Ni(l) intermediate reacts more rapidly with an activated alkyl halide. Thus continuous slow addition of the alkyl halide to the electrochemical cell already charged with the aryl halide ensures that the alkyl-aryl coupled compound becomes the major product. Activated alkyl halides include benzyl chloride, a-chloroketones, a-chloroesters and amides, a-chloro-nitriles and vinyl chlorides [202, 203, 204], Asymmetric induction during the coupling step occurs with over 90 % distereomeric excess from reactions with amides such as 62, derived from enantiomerically pure (-)-ephedrine, even when 62 is a mixture of diastereoisomcrs prepared from a racemic a-chloroacid. Metiha-nolysis of the amide product affords the chiral ester 63 and chiral ephedrine is recoverable [205]. 

Amides are the least reactive of the carboxylic acid derivatives, and undergo acid or base hydrolysis to produce the parent carboxylic acids, and reduction to appropriate amines (see Section 4.3.10). They can also be dehydrated to nitriles, most commonly with boiling acetic anhydride, (AcO)20, sulphonyl chloride (SOCI2) or phosphoms oxychloride (POCI3) (see Section 4.3.18). Amines (with one less carbon) are prepared from amides by the treatment of halides (Br2 or CI2) in aqueous NaOH or KOH. This reaction is known as Hofmann rearrangement (see Section 4.3.10). 

Preparation of alkyl azides The azide ion (N3 ), a good nucleophile, can displace leaving groups from 1° and 2° alkyl halides. Alkyl azides are easily prepared from sodium or potassium azides and alkyl halides. The reaction mechanism resemhles the formation of nitrile. 

Organic Acids and Their Derivatives (Anhydrides. Nitriles, Ureas). Alkyleneamines react with acids, esters, acid anhydrides or acyl halides to form amidoamines and polyamides. Various diamides of EDA are prepared from the appropriate methyl ester or acid at moderate temperatures. 

In reactions where nitriles are prepared from halogen compounds by double decomposition with alkali cyanide in alcoholic or aqueous alcoholic solution, the latter is usually added in solution or as a powder (cf. Preparations 77,78,79), otherwise the alkali halide which separates forms a coating round the cyanide and hinders further action. If the reaction is performed in aqueous solution, as in the preparation of malonic acid (p. 125), this precaution is not so necessary the alkali halide, when formed, remains in solution. 

Ketenimines are usually prepared from carboxylic acid derivatives such as amides and imino chlorides via elimination and from nitriles via alkylation with alkyl halides under strong basic conditions (21,64). 

Alkyl halides (particularly bromides) undergo oxidative addition with activated copper powder, prepared from Cu(I) salts with lithium naphthalenide, to give alkylcopper species10. The alkyl halides may be functionalized with ester, nitrile and chloro functions ketone and epoxide functions may also be tolerated in some cases11. The resulting alkylcopper species have been shown to react efficiently with acid chlorides, enones (conjugate addition) and (less efficiently) with primary alkyl iodides and allylic and benzylic bromides (equations 5 and 6). If a suitable ring size can be made, intramolecular reactions with epoxides and ketones are realized. 

A convenient method for preparing acids from halides is through the cyanides. It is usually unnecessary to isolate or purify the cyanide. By this method the carbon content is increased by one carbon atom. Primary aliphatic nitriles are readily formed in high yields from the halides however, secondary and tertiary cyanides are less easily made in this... 

Halo nitriles are prepared from the corresponding dihalides or from mixed halides by taking advantage of the different reactivities of two dissimilar halogen atoms. ... 

Aromatic nitriles generally cannot be prepared from the unreactive aryl halides (Sec. 25.5). Instead they are made from diazonium salts by a reaction we shall discuss later (Sec. 23.13). Diazonium salts are prepared from aromatic... 

From a historical perspective, the a-(dialkylamino)nitrile anions were the first acyl anion equivalents to undergo systematic investigation. More recent studies indicate that anions of a-(dialkylamino)nitriles derived from aliphatic, aromatic or heteroaromatic aldehydes intercept an array of electrophiles including alkyl halides, alkyl sulfonates, epoxides, aldehydes, ketones, acyl chlorides, chloroformates, unsaturated ketones, unsaturated esters and unsaturated nitriles. Aminonitriles are readily prepared and their anions are formed with a variety of bases such as sodium methoxide, KOH in alcohol, NaH, LDA, PhLi, sodium amide, 70% NaOH and potassium amide. Regeneration of the carbonyl group can be achieved... 

The formation of alkanenitriles from alcohols and HCN is of no interest for laboratory preparations. However, a large number of publications, particularly patents, have appeared, which deal with technical applications of this procedure. A few review articles " serve very well as introductions to this field. Under particularly mild conditions allyl and propargyl alcohols can be transformed into the corresponding nitriles with hydrogen halides in the presence of Cu salts. - The possibility of generating nitriles from alcohols via the analogous halides needs no further treatment at this stage. 

Acid amide-triphenylphosphine dihalide adducts (4) have found wide application in organic synthesis. - Synthetic equivalents are adducts (5) from acid amides and triphenylphosphine/CCU, which are prepared in situ from the educts. - With these reagents the following transformations have been performed dehydration of amides or aldoximes to nitriles, preparation of isonitriles from secondary form-amides, preparation of imidoyl halides from amides or acylhydrazines and preparation of ketene imines from amides. Using polymer-supported triphenylphosphine the work-up procedure is much easier to achieve. Triphenylphosphine can be replaced by tris(dialkylamino)phosphines. - Instead of CCI4 hexa-chloroethane, hexabromoethane or l,l,2,2-tetrabromo-l,2-dichloroethane can be used " the adducts thus formed are assumed to be more effective than those from the triphenylphosphine/CCU system. 

The formation of amide chlorides from nitriles and hydrogen halides under anhydrous conditions is a well-known reaction of wide scope7- There has been some confusion on the nature of the reaction products, but it has turned out that the isolable species are amide chlorides. The thermal stability of the addition products strongly depends on the acidity of the hydrogen halide used. Iodides are more stable than bromides, which in turn are more stable than the chlorides. As a consequence, thermally stable HQ adducts (38 equation 22) can be prepared if Lewis acids ate present, which incorporate the chlorine anion to give a less basic anion (39). 

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