Nucleophilic carbonyl addition acid catalysis

Many of the most interesting and useful reactions of aldehydes and ketones involve trans formation of the initial product of nucleophilic addition to some other substance under the reaction conditions An example is the reaction of aldehydes with alcohols under con ditions of acid catalysis The expected product of nucleophilic addition of the alcohol to the carbonyl group is called a hemiacetal The product actually isolated however cor responds to reaction of one mole of the aldehyde with two moles of alcohol to give gem mal diethers known as acetals... 

Under conditions of acid catalysis the nucleophilic addition step follows protonation of the carbonyl oxygen Protonation increases the carbocat ion character of a carbonyl group and makes it more electrophilic... 

Chiral phosphoric acids mediate the enantioselective formation of C-C, C-H, C-0, C-N, and C-P bonds. A variety of 1,2-additions and cycloadditions to imines have been reported. Furthermore, the concept of the electrophilic activation of imines by means of phosphates has been extended to other compounds, though only a few examples are known. The scope of phosphoric acid catalysis is broad, but limited to reactive substrates. In contrast, chiral A-triflyl phosphoramides are more acidic and were designed to activate less reactive substrates. Asymmetric formations of C-C, C-H, C-0, as well as C-N bonds have been established. a,P-Unsaturated carbonyl compounds undergo 1,4-additions or cycloadditions in the presence of A-triflyl phosphoramides. Moreover, isolated examples of other substrates can be electrophil-ically activated for a nucleophilic attack. Chiral dicarboxylic acids have also found utility as specific acid catalysts of selected asymmetric transformations. 

The Mukaiyama Reaction. The Mukaiyama reaction refers to Lewis acid-catalyzed aldol addition reactions of enol derivatives. The initial examples involved silyl enol ethers.40 Silyl enol ethers do not react with aldehydes because the silyl enol ether is not a strong enough nucleophile. However, Lewis acids do cause reaction to occur by activating the ketone. The simplest mechanistic formulation of the Lewis acid catalysis is that complexation occurs at the carbonyl oxygen, activating the carbonyl group to nucleophilic attack. 

The hydrogen-bond complex 5 and ion pair 6 are activated form of the carbonyl compounds. The nucleophilic addihon of carbon nucleophile to carbonyl compounds and imines may be accelerated by acid catalysis. Nucleophilic attack to carbonyl compounds or imine took place either by way of 5 or 6 to furnish addihon product. If HX activates carbonyl compound by forming hydrogen-bond complex 5 and nucleophilic addition takes place to give an adduct, the reaction is a hydro-gen-bond catalyzed reaction (Scheme 2.5). In contrast, when ion pair 6 is formed and nucleophilic addihon occurs, the reachon is a Br0nsted-acid-catalyzed reachon. 

One method of deciding between Mechanisms I and II is to look at the trend of a in acid-catalyzed additions of various nucleophiles to a carbonyl group.26 It follows from the reacting bond rules that in true general acid catalysis (Mechanism I), the sensitivity of the rate to acidity of the catalyst, and therefore also a, should decrease as the species adding is made more nucleophilic. The reason is that this variation will cause the change in reaction coordinate shown in... 

The experimental evidence favors the conclusion that in addition of nucleophiles to carbonyl groups the observed catalysis is true general acid catalysis. Table 8.2 presents selected data a decreases with increasing nucleophilicity of the addend. More specific techniques applicable to particular reactions lead to the same conclusion.27 For hydration, Mechanism I of Scheme 5, with true general acid catalysis in the forward direction and specific acid plus general base catalysis in the reverse direction, thus appears to be the most reasonable one. 

Another innovation in this text is the use of three-dimensional reaction coordinate diagrams, pioneered by Thornton, More O Ferrall, and Jencks, in the discussions of nucleophilic substitutions, eliminations, and acid catalysis of carbonyl additions. We hope that the examples may lead to more widespread use of these highly informative diagrams. 

The addition of nucleophiles to the carbonyl group may be catalysed by acids obtained by the protonation of the carbonyl oxygen (equilibrium 26). Acid catalysis can also occur during the elimination step which follows the addition step. For example, the reactions of aldehydes with amines (and of all the ammonia derivatives) to form imines are generally assumed to occur in two steps the first is the addition of nucleophile to yield a gem amino alcohol, the second includes the elimination of water from the tetrahedral adduct 138 (see Scheme 45). This elimination is usually thought to be catalysed by electrophiles171,212. 

Explain the mechanism of acid catalysis of nucleophilic additions to the carbonyl group. 

If you want to do a conjugate addition of a carbonyl compound without having a second anion-stabilizing group, you need some stable and relatively unreactive enol equivalent. In Chapters 27 and 28 you saw how enamines are useful in alkylation reactions. These neutral species are also perfect for conjugate addition as they are soft nucleophiles but are more reactive than ends and can be prepared quantitatively in advance. The reactivity of enamines is such that heating the reactants together, sometimes neat, is all that is required. Protic or Lewis acid catalysis can also be used to catalyse the reaction at lower temperature. 

Many additions to a,p-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, take advantage of coordination to the oxygen by a metal cation or a proton, or even just a hydrogen bond. This is true for hydrides and carbon nucleophiles. In such a situation, the LUMO coefficient is largest at the carbonyl carbon, but not at the p carbon. Thus, even soft nucleophiles can be expected to attack directly at the carbonyl carbon when Lewis or protic acid catalysis is involved. It is likely that the difference in the... 

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