Organolithium reagents alcohols

Organolithium reagents react with aldehydes and ketones in a manner similar to that of Grignard reagents to form alcohols... 

Section 15 4 Grignard and organolithium reagents react with ethylene oxide to give primary alcohols... 

Organolithium compounds are sometimes prepared in hydrocarbon solvents such as pentane and hexane, but nonnally diethyl ether is used. It is especially important that the solvent be anhydrous. Even trace amounts of water or alcohols react with lithium to form insoluble lithium hydroxide or lithium alkoxides that coat the surface of the metal and prevent it from reacting with the alkyl halide. Furthennore, organolithium reagents are strong bases and react rapidly with even weak proton sources to fonn hydrocarbons. We shall discuss this property of organolithium reagents in Section 14.5. 

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. 

Table 17.2 summarizes the reactions of aldehydes and ketones that you ve seen in earlier chapters. All are valuable tools to the synthetic chemist. Carbonyl groups provide access to hydrocarbons by Clemmensen or Wolff-Kishner reduction (Section 12.8), to alcohols by reduction (Section 15.2) or by reaction with Grignard or organolithium reagents (Sections 14.6 and 14.7). 

In some cases the yields were poor due to competing deprotonation of the substrate by the organolithium reagent. Deprotonation was the predominant reaction with methyllithium or when (Z)-2-(l-alkenyl)-4,5-dihydrooxazoles were employed. The stereochemical outcome has been rationalized as occurring from a chelated transition state. The starting chiral amino alcohol auxiliary can also be recovered without racemization for reuse. 

ADDITION OF ORGANOLITHIUM REAGENTS TO ALLYL ALCOHOL 2-METHYL-l-HEXANOL... 

Scheme 7.4 illustrates some of the important synthetic reactions in which organolithium reagents act as nucleophiles. The range of reactions includes S/v2-(ype alkylation (Entries 1 to 3), epoxide ring opening (Entry 4), and formation of alcohols by additions to aldehydes and ketones (Entries 5 to 10). Note that in Entry 2, alkylation takes place mainly at the 7-carbon of the allylic system. The ratio favoring 7-alkylation... 

Organolithium reagent 35 was added to aldehyde 31 (Scheme 7.6) to obtain alcohol 36 as an inconsequential 1 1 mixture of diastereomers. The benzylic alcohol was removed using a Barton two-step radical deoxygenation protocol, followed by electrophilic aromatic bromination to provide the desired coupling partner 37. 

Nucleophilic reagents such as secondary amines, alcohols or organolithium reagents convert NSF3 into monosubstituted derivatives NSF2R (R=R 2N, R O, Ar) with retention of the N = S bond.162... 

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