Nitromethane, Michael addition

The mechanism proposed by the authors is depicted in this scheme. A first equivalent of a,fS-unsaturated aldehyde was activated as its corresponding iminium ion by chiral diphenylprolinol trimethylsilyl ether and then underwent the first nitromethane Michael addition to afford a nitroalkane enamine intermediate. Subsequent hydrolysis generated a nitroaldehyde intermediate and the catalyst, which could promote a second Michael addition with a second equivalent of iminium, furnishing an enamine intermediate. This enamine reacted via an intramolecular aldol cyclization to give a novel iminium intermediate. After hydrolysis, the catalyst was regenerated, and the intermediate alcohol could be dehydrated to afford the final products. 

The Michael addition of nitromethane to vinylogons esters of iV-protected amino acids proceeds v/ith good yields and v/ith good diastereoselecdvity fEq. 4.135. ... 

Although the base-catalyzed addition of nitroalkanes to electron-deficient olefins has been extensively used in organic synthesis fsee Michael addition Chapter 4, it is only recently that the reaction has been extended to the cyclopropanadon reaction. In 1978, it was reported that the anion of nitromethane reacts with certain highly electron-deficient olefins to produce cycloptopanesingoodyieldrEq. 7.36. More recently, this reaction has been extended to more general cyclopropanadons, as shown in Eqs. 7.37 and 7.38, in which potassittm salts of nitroalkanes are employed in DMSO as alkylidene transfer reagents." ... 

The addition of active methylene compounds (ethyl malonate, ethyl aceto-acetate, ethyl plienylacetate, nitromethane, acrylonitrile, etc.) to the ap-double bond of a conjugated unsaturated ketone, ester or nitrile in the presence of a basic cataljst (s ium ethoxide, piperidine, diethylamiue, etc.) is known as the Michael reaction or Michael addition. The reaction may be illustrated by the addition of ethyl malonate to ethyl fumarate in the presence of sodium ethoxide hydrolysis and decarboxylation of the addendum (ethyl propane-1 1 2 3-tetracarboxylate) yields tricarballylic acid ... 

Jenner investigated the kinetic pressure effect on some specific Michael and Henry reactions and found that the observed activation volumes of the Michael reaction between nitromethane and methyl vinyl ketone are largely dependent on the magnitude of the electrostriction effect, which is highest in the lanthanide-catalyzed reaction and lowest in the base-catalyzed version. In the latter case, the reverse reaction is insensitive to pressure.52 Recently, Kobayashi and co-workers reported a highly efficient Lewis-acid-catalyzed asymmetric Michael addition in water.53 A variety of unsaturated carbonyl derivatives gave selective Michael additions with a-nitrocycloalkanones in water, at room temperature without any added catalyst or in a very dilute aqueous solution of potassium carbonate (Eq. 10.24).54... 

Addition of nitromethane to benzaldehyde catalyzed by amine followed by Michael addition of DMM catalyzed by Ni complex Cross-linking of amine itself... 

Recently, the Texier-Boullet group [26] has prepared nitrocyclohexanols 10-77 by a twofold Michael addition/aldol reaction sequence (Scheme 10.19). Simply mixing chalcone 10-75 with nitromethane in the presence of a mixture of KF and A1203 under microwave irradiation gave 10-79 via the proposed intermediates 10-76, 10-77 and 10-78 as a single diastereomer in 65 % yield. One possible explanation for the stereoselectivity of the transformation is fixation of the reactive species onto the solid KF/A1203, as depicted in 10-79. 

Combining, in tandem, the nitro-aldol reaction with the Michael addition using thiophenol is a good method for the preparation of P-nitro sulfides as shown in Eqs. 4.2 and 4.3. This reaction is applied to a total synthesis of tuberine. Tuberine is a simple enamide isolated from Streptomyces amakusaensis and has some structural resemblance to erbastatin, an enamide which has received much attention in recent years as an inhibitor of tyrosine-specific kinases. The reaction of p-anisaldehyde and nitromethane in the presence of thiophenol yields the requisite P-nitro sulfide, which is converted into tuberine via reduction, formylation, oxidation, and thermal elimination of... 

In recent years, there has been increased recognition that water is an attractive medium for organic reactions from the environmental point of view. The Michael addition of various nitroalkanes to conjugated enones can be performed in NaOH (0.025 M) and in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC1) as cationic surfactant in the absence of organic solvents (Eq. 4.109).146 The Michael addition of nitromethane to methyl acrylate is carried out in water using NaOH as a base to give the mono adduct (Table 4.2).147... 

The Michael addition of nitromethane to cyclopentenone derivatives is used for synthesis of prostaglandins (Scheme 4.20).158 Here, the anion of nitromethane is used as a formyl anion synthon. 

Newkome and coworkers have developed synthesis of dendritic molecules using the Michael addition of nitromethane to 0t, 3-unsaturated esters as a key reaction (Scheme 4.24).166... 

Barco and coworkers have reported a more elegant synthesis of the nitrocyclohexanone via the double Michael addition of nitromethane with enones. (Eq. 4.130).178... 

The Michael addition of nitromethane to vinylogous esters of / -protected amino acids proceeds with good yields and with good diastereoselectivity (Eq. 4.135).195... 

Matsumoto and coworkers have introduced a new strategy for asymmetric induction under high pressure. The Michael addition of nitromethane to chalcone is performed at 10 kbar in the presence of a catalytic amount of chiral alkaloids. The extent of asymmetric induction reaches up to 50% ee with quinidine in toluene.201... 

Heterobimetallic asymmetric complexes contain both Bronsted basic and Lewis acidic functionalities. These complexes have been developed by Shibasaki and coworkers and have proved to be highly efficient catalysts for many types of asymmetric reactions, including catalytic asymmetric nitro-aldol reaction (see Section 3.3) and Michael reaction. They have reported that the multifunctional catalyst (f )-LPB [LaK3tris(f )-binaphthoxide] controls the Michael addition of nitromethane to chalcones with >95% ee (Eq. 4.140).205... 

The hydrogenation in the presence of Pd/C is also effective for the conversion of nitro compounds to amines.94 The Michael addition of nitromethane to 2-alkenoic esters followed by catalytic hydrogenation using 10% Pd/C in acetic acid and hydrolysis is a convenient method for the preparation of 3-alkyl-4-aminobutanoic acids, which are important y-amino acids for biological study (Eq. 6.48).94b The reduction can be carried out at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. 

The Michael addition of nitroalkanes followed by denitration is also a useful method for the preparation of C-disaccharide. The Michael addition of glucosyl nitromethane to the levoglu-cosenone proceeds stereoselectively, and subsequent denitration gives the C-disaccharide in... 

Ono and coworkers have extended the radical elimination of v/c-dinitro compounds to P-nitro sulfones151 and P-nitro sulfides.138,152 As P-nitro sulfides are readily prepared by the Michael addition of thiols to nitroalkenes, radical elimination of P-nitrosulfides provides a useful method for olefin synthesis. For example, cyclohexanone is converted into allyl alcohol by the reaction shown in Eq. 7.110. Treatment of cyclohexanone with a mixture of nitromethane, PhSH, 35%-HCHO, TMG (0.1 equiv) in acetonitrile gives ahydroxymethylated-P-nitro sulfide in 68% yield, which is converted into the corresponding allyl alcohol in 86% yield by the reaction with Bu3SnH.138 Nitro-aldol and the Michael addition reactions take place sequentially to give the required P-nitro sulfides in one pot. 

Asymmetric Michael addition of nitromethane to a crotonyl camphorsultam gives access to the enantio-pure 2-oxoesters, which may be converted into the 3-hydroxy-5-methylpiperidin-... 

In 2008, Chakraborty el al. reported that Michael addition of nitromethane to the sugar olefinic derivative 36 provided the sugar-based (I-nitro acid ester 37 (Scheme 14), which was used as starting material for the preparation of a novel type of cyclohexyl amines.36... 

Michael addition of nitromethane to D-glucose based vinyl sulfone 38 to afford nitro sugars 39 and 40 was also recently described (Scheme 15).37... 

A salient example regarding a Michael addition of nitronates to a,(5-unsaturated carbonyl compounds is the stereoselective addition of glucosyl nitromethane 93 to levoglucosenone (94) in the presence of tetramethylguanidine (TMG) (Scheme 30).70... 

Secondary nitro compounds can be converted into carbanions in similar fashion. Interesting highly functionalized adducts (46) were prepared by addition to levoglucosene (45) (equation 17)59. Mixtures of diastereomeric adducts were generally formed60. The adduct from nitromethane undergoes double Michael addition followed by aldol condensation to afford the novel adduct 47. 

Papai et al. selected as model reaction the addition of 2,4-pentanedione (acetylacetone) to trans-(R)-mtrostyvQnQ, catalyzed by the bifunctional thiourea catalyst shown in Scheme 6 [46]. The analogous Michael-addition involving dimethyl malonate and nitroethylene as substrates, and a simplified catalyst was calculated at the same level of theory by Liu et al. [47]. Himo et al. performed a density functional study on the related cinchona-thiouTQa catalyzed Henry-reaction between nitromethane and benzaldehyde [48]. 

The Michael additions of various carbon nucleophiles such as cyanide [15b, 22b], anions generated from nitromethane [27], ferf-butyl acetate [9], malon-ates [27] and O Donnell s glycine equivalent [541, cuprates [9,15b] or Grignard reagents [53] under copper catalysis [55] have also been reported (Scheme 24). 

The same authors (77) also investigated the Michael addition of nitromethane to a,/l-unsaturated carbonyl compounds such as methyl crotonate, 3-buten-2-one, 2-cyclohexen-l-one, and crotonaldehyde in the presence of various solid base catalysts (alumina-supported potassium fluoride and hydroxide, alkaline earth metal oxides, and lanthanum oxide). The reactions were carried out at 273 or 323 K the results show that SrO, BaO, and La203 exhibited practically no activity for any Michael additions, whereas MgO and CaO exhibited no activity for the reaction of methyl crotonate and 3-buten-2-one, but low activities for 2-cyclohexen-l-one and crotonaldehyde. The most active catalysts were KF/alumina and KOH/alumina for all of the Michael additions tested. 

A second approach (472) to 512 started with trans-2-buitnc epoxide (524) (Scheme 67). Opening of the epoxide ring of 524 with lithium acetylide gave an acetylenic alcohol, which was converted to the acetylenic acid (525) by carbox-ylation with gaseous carbon dioxide. Partial hydrogenation of 525 followed by lactonization afforded the a,3-unsaturated lactone (526) which was transformed to the nitrolactone (527) by a Michael addition reaction of nitromethane. The Nef reaction of 527 gave the tetrahydrofuranyl acetal (528) which was converted to... 

Scheme 6.69 Products obtained from the 12-catalyzed asymmetric Michael addition of malononitrile, nitromethane, and methyl a-cyanoacetate to N-cinnamoylbenzamide derivatives (acylic imides) and 12-catalyzed derivatization of the Michael adduct.

The Soos group, in 2005, prepared the first thiourea derivatives from the cinchona alkaloids quinine QN (8S, 9R-121), dihydroquinidine DHQD (8S, 9S-122), C9-epi-QN (8S, 9P-123), and quinidine QD (SR, 9R-124) via an experimentally simple one-step protocol with epimerization at the C9-position of the alkaloid starting material (Figure 6.39) [278]. The catalytic efficiency of these new thiourea derivatives and also of unmodified QN and C9-epi-QN was evaluated in the enan-tioselective Michael addition [149-152] of nitromethane to the simple model chal-cone 1,3-diphenyl-propenone resulting in adduct 1 in Scheme 6.119. After 99h reaction time at 25 °C in toluene and at 10 mol% catalyst loading QN turned out to be a poor catalyst (4% yield/42% ee (S)-adduct) and C9-epi-QN even failed to accelerate the screening reaction. In contrast, the C9-modified cinchona alkaloid... 

Figure 6.39 Cinchona alkaloid-thioureas prepared from quinine (121), dihydroquinine (122), C9-epi-quinine (123), and quinidine (124) catalytic efficiency evaluated in the Michael addition of nitromethane to tram-chalcone 1,3-diphenyl-propenone at 10mol% loading and rt.

The reaction of 75 with 76 in the presence of nitromethane to ultimately produce 77 is thought to proceed by an analogous mechamsm <99TL4023, 99TL4027>. The authors noted that this tandem Nef reaction/Michael addition produced 77 in a single step with sonication. 

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