Observation of Carbenes

The understanding of reactions involving transient formation of carbonium ions and carbanions has been greatly assisted by studies on related species which, under suitable conditions, could be obtained in stable form. While attempts have been made to obtain carbenes in pure stable form, for example, by rapid condensation of gaseous pyrolysates known by mass spectrometry to contain carbenes (for a recent example, see Martin and McGhee, 1968), these have not so far proved very fruitful. Accordingly, direct studies of carbenes have been made by  

The observational techniques used are spectroscopic in all cases. Electronic and vibration-rotation spectroscopy have been used for the simplest structures such as methylene and the halomethylenes the phase in which the carbene is examined does not seem to have much influence on the observed spectra (Bass and Mann, 1962). For more complicated carbenes, structural information has been largely gleaned from EPR spectroscopy using the matrix isolation technique, and this of necessity restricts studies to triplet states. 

The emission spectrum of an excited state of difiuoromethylene, obtained by discharge through CF4, was the first authenticated spectroscopic examination of a carbene (Venkateswarlu, 1950 E. B. Andrews and Barrow, 1950 see also Marsigny et al., 1968). Absorption by the ground state was reported later (Laird et al., 1950) and the spectral information analysed (Duchesne and Burnelle, 1951, 1953) a singlet 

104-9°. Isolation of difiuoromethylene in an argon matrix has enabled examination of the ultraviolet (Bass and Mann, 1962) and infrared spectra (Milligan et al., 1964), and the results are in good agreement with those from the gas phase ultraviolet absorption, 2300-2670 A infrared fundamentals at 668, 1102 and 1222 cm-1. Simple MO calculations have assisted assignment of the ultraviolet absorption and suggest that there is a substantial 77-interaction between fluorine and the vacant orbital on carbon (Simons, 1965). 

Absorption spectra of these carbenes in the region 4000-9000 A have been obtained by flash photolysis of the corresponding dibromohalo-methane (Merer and Travis, 1966). Analysis of the spectra leads to the conclusion that the lower state in the observed transitions is a singlet. 

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The subject of this chapter is carbenes with aryl substituents (aromatic carbenes). These materials are short-lived reactive intermediates in which the normal tetravalency of carbon is reduced by two. Carbenes have been the object of speculation and investigation for more than 80 years. Nevertheless, there still is considerable uncertainty about their chemical and physical properties. In the last five years the pace of research in carbene chemistry has quickened. This is a consequence of the development of high-speed pulsed lasers that permit, for the first time, direct observation of carbenes under the conditions in which they react. This research has provided new information on the effect of structure on the chemical and physical properties of carbenes. 

Zhang Y, Burdzinski G, Rubicki J, Platz MS (2008) Direct observation of carbene and diazo formation from aryldiaziiines by ultrafast IR spectroscopy. J AmChem Soc 130 16134-16135... 

The matrix-isolation technique is the method of choice for the direct spectroscopic observation of carbenes . However, efforts to generate and to observe silylcarbenes in solid matrices at cryogenic temperatures met with limited success. When (trimethylsi-lyl)diazomethane, (dimethylsilyl)diazomethane or bis(trimethylsilyl)diazomethane were irradiated in an argon matrix at <10 K, no IR spectra of the corresponding carbenes 3a-c could be obtained " . However, weak ESR signals were observed which were typical for a linear carbene with a triplet ground state . These results indicate that at least small amounts of carbenes 3a-c were present in the matrix. 

Although this reaction appears to involve only two electrons, it was shown by Mulder [57] that in fact two jc and two ct elections are required to account for this system. The three possible spin pairings become clear when it is realized that a pair of carbene radicals are formally involved. Figure 14. In practice, the conical intersection defined by the loop in Figme 14 is high-lying, so that often other conical intersections are more important in ethylene photochemistry. Flydrogen-atom shift products are observed [58]. This topic is further detailed in Section VI. 

Weak to moderate chemiluminescence has been reported from a large number of other Hquid-phase oxidation reactions (1,128,136). The Hst includes reactions of carbenes with oxygen (137), phenanthrene quinone with oxygen in alkaline ethanol (138), coumarin derivatives with hydrogen peroxide in acetic acid (139), nitriles with alkaline hydrogen peroxide (140), and reactions that produce electron-accepting radicals such as HO in the presence of carbonate ions (141). In the latter, exemplified by the reaction of h on(II) with H2O2 and KHCO, the carbonate radical anion is probably a key intermediate and may account for many observations of weak chemiluminescence in oxidation reactions. 

Very few reactions of carbenes with heterocyclic systems containing more than one hetero atom have been studied. They are confined to variants of the Reimer-Tiemann formylation of thiazoles, pyra-zoles, iminazoles, and indolizines/ and ring expansion does not appear to have been observed. 

However, formation of the metal carbene complex was not observed in pure, halide-free [BMIM][Bp4], indicating that the formation of carbene depends on the... 

The IR bands of carbenes [2], [5], and [6] have also been observed in the spectrum after vacuum UV photolysis of matrix-isolated methylacetylene (Huang and Graham, 1990). It was found that a fourth carbene -propendiylidene [8] - was formed in this reaction as well. In accord with ab initio calculations, the first of two absorptions (3292 cm and 1960 cm ) has been assigned to V2 ( ) of cw-[8] and the second one to (a ) of trans-[8]. 

During photolysis of [29] in an argon matrix doped with 4% CO, bands belonging to the ketene [31] were observed along with those of the carbene [30], Upon further warming to 40-45 K the carbene bands disappeared and were replaced with bands of the ketene [31], indicating a direct interaction of carbene (CF3)2C with CO. Photolysis of diazirine [29] in a matrix doped with 17% CO resulted in the appearance of only ketene [31] bands the carbene bands were not detected in this experiment. 

Using the pseudo-first-order equation A obsd = 0 + co2 [COiKwhere kcoi is the second-order rate constant for the reaction of carbene with CO2 and ko is the rate of carbene decay in the absence of CO2), solution-phase values of kcoi for phenylchlorocarbenes 9 and 12, and diphenylcarbenes 14 and 15 in dichloromethane were estimated (Table 4.1). (The concentration of CO2 in saturated dichloromethane solution at 25°C and 1 atm is 196mmol/L. ) The trend of these estimated second-order order rate constants agrees with that observed in low-temperature matrices by Sander and co-workers. ... 

Since the most direct evidence for specihc solvation of a carbene would be a spectroscopic signature distinct from that of the free carbene and also from that of a fully formed ylide, TRIR spectroscopy has been used to search for such car-bene-solvent interactions. Chlorophenylcarbene (32) and fluorophenylcarbene (33) were recently examined by TRIR spectroscopy in the absence and presence of tetrahydrofuran (THF) or benzene. These carbenes possess IR bands near 1225 cm that largely involve stretching of the partial double bond between the carbene carbon and the aromatic ring. It was anticipated that electron pair donation from a coordinating solvent such as THF or benzene into the empty carbene p-orbital might reduce the partial double bond character to the carbene center, shifting this vibrational frequency to a lower value. However, such shifts were not observed, perhaps because these halophenylcarbenes are so well stabilized that interactions with solvent are too weak to be observed. The bimolecular rate constant for the reaction of carbenes 32 and 33 with tetramethylethylene (TME) was also unaffected by THF or benzene, consistent with the lack of solvent coordination in these cases. °... 

Further studies were carried out with halocarbene amides 34 and 357 Although again no direct spectroscopic signatures for specifically solvated carbenes were found, compelling evidence for such solvation was obtained with a combination of laser flash photolysis (LFP) with UV-VIS detection via pyridine ylides, TRIR spectroscopy, density functional theory (DFT) calculations, and kinetic simulations. Carbenes 34 and 35 were generated by photolysis of indan-based precursors (Scheme 4.7) and were directly observed by TRIR spectroscopy in Freon-113 at 1635 and 1650 cm , respectively. The addition of small amounts of dioxane or THF significantly retarded the rate of biomolecular reaction with both pyridine and TME in Freon-113. Also, the addition of dioxane increased the observed lifetime of carbene 34 in Freon-113. These are both unprecedented observations. 

In either neat dioxane or THF, carbene-ether ylides are observed as a broad IR absorption band between 1560 and 1610 cm , distinct from the IR bands of the free carbenes. With discrete spectroscopic signatures for the free carbene and its corresponding ether ylides, TRIR spectroscopy was used to confirm that the effects described above with dilute ether in Freon-113 were due to specific solvation of the carbene (Scheme 4.6, Reaction 2) rather than a pre-equilibration with the coordinating solvent (Scheme 4.6, Reaction 3) or reactivity of the ylide itself (Scheme 6, Reaction 4). In Freon-113 containing 0.095M THF simultaneous TRIR observation of both the free carbene (x = ca. 500 ns) and the carbene-THF ylide (x = ca. 5ps) was possible7 The observation that lifetimes of these species were observed to be so different conclusively demonstrates that the free carbene and the carbene-THF ylide are not in rapid equilibrium and that Reaction 3 of Scheme 4.6 is not operative. By examining the kinetics of the carbene 34 at 1635 cm directly in Freon-113 with small amounts of added dioxane, it was observed that the rate of reaction with TME was reduced, consistent with Reaction 2 (and not Reaction 4) of Scheme 4.6. 

The thermal conversion of carbene 53 to styrene could also be observed in Xe matrices. Although stable at 12 K for at least 24 h, increasing amounts of carbene were observed to convert to styrene as the temperature was raised gradually to ca. 60 K. At each intermediate temperature between 12 and 60 K, site clearing behavior was detected, where some amounts of carbene disappeared rapidly, followed by no further decay. At around 60 K, the carbene rearranged with exponential first-order... 

In contrast to the situation on flash pyrolysis, methyleneoxophosphoranes generated by thermolysis or photolysis in the presence of protic nucleophiles can be directly trapped to form corresponding derivatives of phosphinic acid (17- 19) however, the possibility of competing insertion of carbenes into the H/X bond of the additives is always present, giving phosphine oxides with X in the a-position (16- 18). Reaction branching at the carbene 16 was first observed on photolysis of 7 in water 13) and prompted detailed investigations on the phosphorylcarbene/ methyleneoxophosphorane rearrangement. 

Palladium(II) acetate was found to be a good catalyst for such cyclopropanations with ethyl diazoacetate (Scheme 19) by analogy with the same transformation using diazomethane (see Sect. 2.1). The best yields were obtained with monosubstituted alkenes such as acrylic esters and methyl vinyl ketone (64-85 %), whereas they dropped to 10-30% for a,p-unsaturated carbonyl compounds bearing alkyl groups in a- or p-position such as ethyl crotonate, isophorone and methyl methacrylate 141). In none of these reactions was formation of carbene dimers observed. 7>ms-benzalaceto-phenone was cyclopropanated stereospecifically in about 50% yield PdCl2 and palladium(II) acetylacetonate were less efficient catalysts 34 >. Diazoketones may be used instead of diazoesters, as the cyclopropanation of acrylonitrile by diazoacenaph-thenone/Pd(OAc)2 (75 % yield) shows142). 

The photoelimination of nitrogen from diazo compounds provides a simple and versatile route for the generation of carbenes, and in certain instances, insertion reactions of carbenes can be employed in the synthesis of heterocycles. Carbenes are believed to be involved at least in part in the photochemically induced conversion of N,N-diethyldiazoacetamide (439) into the y-lactam 440 and the /Mactam 441,365 and a similar approach has been successfully employed in the synthesis of a carbapen-2-em366 and of 7-methylcephalosporin analogues.367 Carbene insertion of a different type has been observed on irradiation of the 6-anilino-5-diazouracils 442 to give the indolo[2,3-d]pyrimidines 443.368 Ring contractions in heterocycles... 

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