Organo-lithium

This procedure illustrates a general method for the preparation of alkenes from the pal 1 adium(Q)-cata1yzed reaction of vinyl halides with organo-lithium compounds, which can be prepared by various methods, including direct regioselective lithiation of hydrocarbons. The method is simple and has been used to prepare a variety of alkenes stereoselectively. Similar stoichiometric organocopper reactions sometimes proceed in a nonstereoselective... 

Unlike elimination and nucleophilic substitution reactions, fonnation of organo-lithium compounds does not require that the halogen be bonded to 5/) -hybiidized car bon. Compounds such as vinyl halides and aryl halides, in which the halogen is bonded to sp -hybiidized carbon, react in the sane way as alkyl halides, but at somewhat slower rates. 

All that has been said in this section applies with equal force to the use of organo-lithium reagents in the synthesis of alcohols. Grignard reagents are one source of nucleophilic carbon organolithium reagents are another. Both have substantial carbanionic char acter in their- car bon-metal bonds and undergo the same kind of reaction with aldehydes and ketones. 

The rearrangement of an ether 1 when treated with a strong base, e.g. an organo-lithium compound RLi, to give an alcohol 3 via the intermediate a-metallated ether 2, is called the Wittig rearrangement. The product obtained is a secondary or tertiary alcohol. R R can be alkyl, aryl and vinyl. Especially suitable substrates are ethers where the intermediate carbanion can be stabilized by one of the substituents R R e.g. benzyl or allyl ethers. 

Table 5.2 "Reductive alkylation of simple epoxides by organo-lithiums.

B. J. Wakefield, Best Synthetic Methods Organo-lithium Methods I, p 38, Academic, London 1988. 

Some new initiators soluble in hydrocarbons were described during the last few years. Organo-lithium compounds form 1 1 complexes with alkyls of Mg 134,135), Zn 136) or Cd l36), and their usefulness as initiators of anionic polymerization of styrene and the dienes was established 137). 

Isoquinoline 53 was also used as a substrate for the addition of organo-lithium reagents by Alexakis and Amiot (Scheme 13) [13]. While remaining quite modest, the best enantioselectivities (48%) were still reached with sparteine after quenching with methyl chloroformate. However, a mixture of mono- and bisacylated products 54 and 55 were obtained in all cases and the use of a catalytic amount of sparteine lowered the selectivity of the adducts. 

Organocadmium compounds can be prepared from Grignard reagents or organo-lithium compounds by reaction with Cd(II) salts.180 They can also be prepared directly from alkyl, benzyl, and aryl halides by reaction with highly reactive cadmium metal generated by reduction of Cd(II) salts.181... 

Several examples of intramolecular additions to carbonyl groups by organo-lithium reagents generated by halogen-metal exchange have been reported, such as the two examples shown below. What relative reactivity relationships must hold in order for such procedures to succeed ... 

See Other GRIGNARD REAGENTS, HALO-ARYLMETALS, FLUORINATED ORGANO-LITHIUM COMPOUNDS... 

A very original synthesis providing germyl-substituted ferrocenes 7 involves organo-lithium compounds33,34 (Scheme 5). 

Sulfonium, cyclopropyldiphenyl tetrafluoroborate, 54, 28 Sulfonium salts, acetylenic, furans from, 53, 3 Sulfonium ylides, 54, 32 Sulfur, reaction with organo-lithium compounds, 50, 105 Sulfuryl chloride, with 1,1-cyclobutanedicarboxylic acid to give 3-chloro-l,1-cyclobutanedicarboxylic acid, 51, 73... 

In many syntheses activation is not effected by sonochemical preparation of the metal alone but rather by sonication of a mixture of the metal and an organic reagent(s). The first example was published many years ago by Renaud, who reported the beneficial role of sonication in the preparation of organo-lithium, magnesium, and mercury compounds [86]. For many years, these important findings were not followed up but nowadays this approach is very common in sonochemistry. In another early example an ultrasonic probe (25 kHz) was used to accelerate the preparation of radical anions [87]. Unusually for this synthesis of benzoquinoline sodium species (5) the metal was used in the form of a cube attached to the horn and preparation times in diethyl ether were reduced from 48 h (reflux using sodium wire) to 45 min using ultrasound. 

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