Nucleophilic carbonyl addition reaction acid catalysis

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. 

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... 

This is a further example of a carbonyl-electrophile complex, and equivalent to the conjugate acid, so that the subsequent nucleophilic addition reaction parallels that in hemiacetal formation. Loss of the leaving group occurs first in an SNl-like process with the cation stabilized by the neighbouring oxygen an SN2-like process would be inhibited sterically. It is also possible to rationalize why base catalysis does not work. Base would simply remove a proton from the hydroxyl to initiate hemiacetal decomposition back to the aldehyde - what is needed is to transform the hydroxyl into a leaving group (see Section 6.1.4), hence the requirement for protonation. 

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. 

This reaction is quite special in that it is an aldol-type addition in which a thioester is the donor (nucleophile) and a keto acid is the acceptor (electrophile). From the discussion in Section 18-8E, you will see that reactions of this kind involving an ester as the donor and an aldehyde or ketone as the acceptor can be achieved in the laboratory only under rather special conditions. For the thioester to function as a nucleophile at the a carbon under the restraints imposed by having the reaction occur at the physiological pH, the catalyzing enzyme almost certainly must promote formation of the enol form of the thioester. The enol then could add to the ketone carbonyl with the assistance of a basic group on the enzyme. This kind of catalysis by enzymes is discussed in Section 25-9C. 

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. 

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. 

The lone pairs may act as nucleophiles in substitution reactions of alkyl halides and sulfonates, in the solvolysis of epoxides, and in addition reactions to carbonyl groups. These reactions often proceed with acid or base catalysis. 

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. 

The benefits of pressure or Lewis acid catalysis for the addition of nucleophiles to carbonyl compounds is also well established, e.g. in various aldol processes or allylation reactions. The combination of the two methods, however, has rarely been applied. 

Let us now examine how substituent effects in reactants influence the rates of nucleophilic additions to carbonyl groups. The most common mechanism for substitution reactions at carbon centers is by an addition-elimination mechanism. The adduct formed by the nucleophilic addition step is tetrahedral and has sp hybridization. This adduct may be the product (as in hydride reduction) or an intermediate (as in nucleophilic substitution). For carboxylic acid derivatives, all of the steps can be reversible, but often one direction will be strongly favored by product stability. The addition step can be acid-catalyzed or base-catalyzed or can occur without specific catalysis. In protic solvents, proton transfer reactions can be an integral part of the mechanism. Solvent molecules, the nucleophile, and the carbonyl compound can interact in a concerted addition reaction that includes proton transfer. The overall rate of reaction depends on the reactivity of the nucleophile and the position of the equilibria involving intermediates. We therefore have to consider how the substituent might affect the energy of the tetrahedral intermediate. 

You shouldn t need us to tell you the mechanism of this reaction even without looking at the mechanism we gave for the formation of the oxime it should come as no surprise to you by now. But as the reaction is very important in chemistry and biology, we ll discuss it in some depth. First, the amine attacks the aldehyde and the intermediate known as a hemiacetal is formed. Amines are good nucleophiles for carbonyl groups, and aldehydes and ketones are electrophilic. There is no need for any catalysis in this step. Indeed, addition of acid would slow the reaction down as the nucleophilic amine would be removed as a salt. 

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