Nucleophilic Addition Reactions to Arynes

NUCLEOPHILIC ADDITION REACTIONS TO ARYNES 12.5.1 Regioselectivity Issues for Functionalized Arynes... 

The first of these possibilities can occur if the addition reaction to the aryne is regiospecific and leads only to the normal substitution product 126 - 1 - 127. Such regiospecific reactions are known and are due to electronic and/or steric effects in either the aryne or the entering nucleophile. For example, m-chlorobenzotrifluoride (130) and m-bromoanisole (131) give only the respective m-substituted anilines (132) upon amination in spite of the demonstrated intermediacy of arynes. Similar regiospecificity might be expected even in unsubstituted hetarynes because of electronic directing effects of the heteroatom. 

Elimination-addition mechanism (Section 23.8) Two-stage mechanism for nucleophilic aromatic substitution. In the first stage, an aryl halide undergoes elimination to form an aryne intermediate. In the second stage, nucleophilic addition to the aryne yields the product of the reaction. 

Arynes are intermediates in certain reactions of aromatic compounds, especially in some nucleophilic substitution reactions. They are generated by abstraction of atoms or atomic groups from adjacent positions in the nucleus and react as strong electrophiles and as dienophiles in fast addition reactions. An example of a reaction occurring via an aryne is the amination of o-chlorotoluene (1) with potassium amide in liquid ammonia. According to the mechanism given, the intermediate 3-methylbenzyne (2) is first formed and subsequent addition of ammonia to the triple bond yields o-amino-toluene (3) and m-aminotoluene (4). It was found that partial rearrangement of the ortho to the meta isomer actually occurs. 

The chemistry of dehydrobenzene, the parent aryne, has become well established during the past almost twenty years 4>. It is essentially the chemistry of a short lived (half-life ca. 10-4 sec.), and highly electrophilic intermediate. It reacts with a large number of nucleophiles, and undergoes cyclo-addition reactions with a wide variety of compounds. A number of observations have led us, and others, to concentrate our efforts on the tetrahalogenobenzynes. It seemed reasonable to predict that the presence of four electron withdrawing substituents on the aryne (1) would result in a significant increase in the electrophilicity compared with that of benzyne. 

It seems that the repulsive steric interactions play a more dominant role in regioselectivity of aryne reactions than is sometimes realized. In fact, it has been argued that in nucleophilic addition to arynes, the transition state is reached early, while the incipient bond is still very much extended. Consequently, steric effects were considered not to be of great importance.80 81 It should, however, be noted that the dehydro bond orbitals are so oriented that the optimal approach trajectory for the nucleophile lies in the... 

In addition of organometallic reagents to some arynes, prior counterion complexation with the substituent can direct the incoming group to the ortho position (kinetic control). Addition of alkyllithiums to oxazolinyl (OXZ) aryne (51) to give the ortho product (52) is explained in this manner. In contrast, lithium dialkylcuprates add to the aryne (51) exclusively at the meta position. This is ascribed to thermodynamic control of the reaction, which results in the formation of the more ligated and stable adduct (S3).i2 Control of nucleophilic addition to arynes by complex-induced proximity effects has not been explored with substituents other than OXZ,83 but has considerable synthetic potential if it can be achieved, say through solvent manipulation. 

A variety of substituted aromatic compounds have been prepared through addition of anionic nucleophiles to arynes generated from readily accessible precursors.1 Most of the laboratory preparations start with aryl halides. The coupling yields are usually good to modest (equations 13-15) but can be poor (equation 16).83 Sometimes, a dramatic improvement in reaction efficiency can be achieved by the change of the base/solvent pair or other reaction conditions. For instance, in arylation of phenoxides and benzenethiolates, a switch over to DMSO as the solvent boosted the yield considerably (equation 17).86 Another example, illustrative of this point, is the reaction of N-methylpyrrolidone with aryl halides where an acceptable yield could not be obtained under a variety of conditions except with LICA in THF (equation 18).71... 

The reaction proceeds by (1) organometallic exchange, followed by (2) aryne formation, and (3) a regiospecific nucleophilic addition of the aryl Grignard to the aryne. These steps can occur or recur in tandem fashion to form from one to six new carbon-carbon bonds in a single operation [33,34]. Subsequently, the method was extended to alkenyl and alkynyl Grignards [35 Eq. (13)] and trimethylsilylvinyl Grignards [36]. 

With few exceptions arynes used in the nucleophilic additions discussed so far are generated either by removing with base an aryl proton adjacent to a leaving group (Type A2, Section III.A.2), or by decomposing an anthranilic acid derivative (Type Bl, Section III.A.3). Reactions described in the remainder of this section are initiated instead by metal-halogen exchange (Type Al, Section IILA.l). 

Although there are some mechanistic uncertainties, there is evidence that the reaction occurs via two successively formed arynes produced after metal-halogen exchange at both iodines. If arynes were formed independently at each halogen pair, one would expect a mixture of m- and p-terphenyls as products. It is thought that the regioselectivity in the nucleophilic additions to aryne intermediates 638 and 639 is a consequence of the need to keep the two carbanionic sites on the benzene ring remote (i.e. para) to each other. 

In 1953, Robert s experiments on the conversion of C-labeled chlorobenzene with KNH2 into aniline gave strong support to the intermediacy of ortho-benzyne in this and related reactions. Additional direct evidence for the existence of ortho-benzyne was provided by the observation of its IR spectrum, sohd-state dipolar NMR spectrum, and NMR in a molecular container, and by UV photoelectron spectroscopy. Even at low temperatures, arynes are extraordinary reactive. The reactions of arynes can be divided into three groups (i) pericyclic reactions, (ii) nucleophilic additions, and (iii) transition-metal catalyzed reactions. The pericyclic reactions can be divided into several categories such as Diels-Alder reactions, [2-f2] cycloadditions, 1,3- and l,4-dipolar cycloadditions, and the ene reactions. Arynes react with practically aU kinds of nucleophiles. More recently, the transition-metal catalyzed reactions of arynes have been studied, in particular those involving palladium. 

Arynes react readily with simple alkenes to give either benzocyclobutenes or substituted benzenes (Scheme 7.31). The formation of benzocyclobutenes by [2+2] cycloaddition reaction of the aryne to the alkene proceeds best for strained and electron-rich carbon-carbon (C=C) double bonds. For example, dicyclopentadiene reacts to give the ex o-isomer of the corresponding four-membered ring in good yield. The addition to cyanoethene (acrylonitrile) and the reaction with the electron-rich ethoxyethene (ethyl vinyl ether) gives the cyano- and ethoxy-benzocyclobutenes in 20% and 40% yields, respectively. The latter reaction almost certainly involves nucleophilic addition of the enol ether to the electrophilic aryne followed by coUapse... 

Although the vast majority of stepwise polar additions to ortho-benzyne involve nucleophilic attack on the aryne, electrophilic attack is also possible provided that the aryne is generated by a method that does not involve strongly basic conditions. Few such additions are synthetically useful, with the exception of the formation of 1,2-dihalobenzenes by reactions of ortho-benzynes with halogens, although alternative mechanisms initiated by nucleophilic attack of halide may be envisaged. Radical reactions of ortHo-benzyne, on the other hand, are extremely rare. 

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