Organomercurials reduction

Monoalkylthallium(III) compounds can be prepared easily and rapidly by treatment of olefins with thallium(III) salts, i.e., oxythallation (66). In marked contrast to the analogous oxymercuration reaction (66), however, where treatment of olefins with mercury(II) salts results in formation of stable organomercurials, the monoalkylthallium(III) derivatives obtained from oxythallation are in the vast majority of cases spontaneously unstable, and cannot be isolated under the reaction conditions employed. Oxythallation adducts have been isolated on a number of occasions (61, 71,104,128), but the predominant reaction pathway which has been observed in oxythallation reactions is initial formation of an alkylthallium(III) derivative and subsequent rapid decomposition of this intermediate to give products derived by oxidation of the organic substrate and simultaneous reduction of the thallium from thallium(III) to thallium(I). The ease and rapidity with which these reactions occur have stimulated interest not only in the preparation and properties of monoalkylthallium(III) derivatives, but in the mechanism and stereochemistry of oxythallation, and in the development of specific synthetic organic transformations based on oxidation of unsaturated systems by thallium(III) salts. 

The reductive decomposition of alkylmercury compounds is also a useful source of radicals.300 The organomercury compounds are available by oxymercuration (see Section 4.1.3) or from organometallic compounds as a result of metal-metal exchange (see Section 7.3.3). 

Alkyl radicals generated by reduction of organomercury compounds can also add to alkenes having EWG groups. Radicals are generated by reduction of the organomercurial by NaBH4 or a similar reductant. These techniques have been... 

Borohydride reduction of the organomercury peroxide 47 yielded 9,10-dioxabicyclo-... 

Organomercurials formed in such processes are oxidized further and may inhibit the reduction of Pb(II) ions at similar potentials81 ... 

Considering that /Tarninornercury(II) tetrafluoroborates are polar enough to undergo nucleophilic attack by the lone electron pair of an amine, ether or alcohol in the case of the 1,3-cyclooctadiene, 179, it has been assumed that the first formed 1,4-adduct can give the reaction product by displacement of mercury by amine with direct participation of the nucleophile in an assisted breakage of the anti C—Hg bond (path a) or by spontaneous reduction of mercury in the intermediate allylic organomercurial (path b) (equation 157). 

Demercuration of organomercury compounds is a critical step in synthetic procedures, which involve mercuration-initiated cyclization reactions [e.g. 41], Many of the standard procedures for demercuration result in rearrangement or ring cleavage of the system, but reductive carbon-mercury cleavage (e.g. Scheme 11.4) with an excess of the quaternary ammonium borohydride is effective under phase-transfer conditions [e.g. 42,43]. 

The Hg cathode plays the role of a reducing catalyst. Electrochemical reduction of 8-bromoboman-2-one in an HMPA-Bu4NBr-(Pt/Hg) system also suggests the formation of an organomercurial intermediate that leads to the formation of dihydrocarvone as the major product [553]. 

Perlmutter used an oxymercuration/demercuration of a y-hydroxy alkene as the key transformation in an enantioselective synthesis of the C(8 ) epimeric smaller fragment of lb (and many more pamamycin homologs cf. Fig. 1) [36]. Preparation of substrate 164 for the crucial cyclization event commenced with silylation and reduction of hydroxy ester 158 (85-89% ee) [37] to give aldehyde 159, which was converted to alkenal 162 by (Z)-selective olefination with ylide 160 (dr=89 l 1) and another diisobutylaluminum hydride reduction (Scheme 22). An Oppolzer aldol reaction with boron enolate 163 then provided 164 as the major product. Upon successive treatment of 164 with mercury(II) acetate and sodium chloride, organomercurial compound 165 and a second minor diastereomer (dr=6 l) were formed, which could be easily separated. Reductive demercuration, hydrolytic cleavage of the chiral auxiliary, methyl ester formation, and desilylation eventually led to 166, the C(8 ) epimer of the... 

Cyclization by amidomercuration has been reported (391). Reaction of N-methoxycarbonyl-6-aminohept-l-ene (211) with mercuric acetate gave the organomercurial (212). Reductive coupling of 212 with l-decen-3-one in the usual way gave the cis and trans isomers (213). Successive treatment of 213 with ethanedithiol, Raney nickel, and ethanolic hydrogen chloride afforded ( )-sole-nopsin A (Id, 2 parts) and its isomer (Ic, 3 parts), which were separable by preparative gas chromatography (GC) (Scheme 5) (391). 

Our solution to this synthetic problem was the development of an iterative technique for preparing hydroxypropyl ethers from allyl ethers via oxymercuration-reduction. Figure 3 illustrates the process for the preparation of a series of three chain-extended hydroxypropyl derivatives of 2,6-dimethoxyphenol. Conversion of phenol 1 to the allyl ether 2 under phase-transfer conditions (6) was followed by oxymercuration (7) to give the intermediate organomercurial 3, which was reduced without isolation to give hydroxypropyl ether 4 in 64% overall yield. Ether 4. was then allylated to provide 5, which upon oxymercuration-reduction afforded hydroxypropyl derivative 6. One further iteration of the allylation-oxymercuration-reduction sequence yielded the hydroxypropyl compound 7. 

Examples of radical-mediated C-alkylations are listed in Table 5.4. In these examples, radicals are formed by halogen abstraction with tin radicals (Entries 1 and 2), by photolysis of Barton esters (Entry 3), and by the reduction of organomercury compounds (Entry 4). Carbohydrate-derived, polystyrene-bound a-haloesters undergo radical allylation with allyltributyltin with high diastereoselectivity (97% de [41]). Cleavage from supports by homolytic bond fission with simultaneous formation of C-H or C-C bonds is considered in Section 3.16. 

Quite recently, new methods for stereocontrol in cyclizations of /V-acylami nomethyl ethers have been developed. N,0-acetals of type (19 Scheme 13) were prepared from the corresponding secondary allyl alcohol and the diastereomers were separated by chromatography and/or crystallization. Cyclization with mercury(II) salts and reduction of the organomercury intermediate proceeded with high stereocontrol exerted by the amidal stereogenic center, not the stereogenic center on the original alcohol.237 ... 

Similar to the tin- and zinc-based methodologies, electron deficient alkenes were found to strongly catalyze the reductive elimination step.155 156-395 Organomercury reagents are also believed to add via metal addition.385... 

Complicating side reactions may occasionally occur - as in the oxymercuration-demercuration of styrene to 1-phenylethanol for which experimental details are also given. In this case evidently some organomercurial compounds survive the reductive stage, and their subsequent decomposition during final distillation complicates the isolation of the pure product. 

For reductions, hanging mercury drop electrodes or mercuryfilm electrodes are frequently used owing to their microscopic smoothness and because of the large overpotential for hydrogen evolution characteristic for this electrode material. Mercury film electrodes are conveniently prepared by the electrochemical deposition of mercury on a platinum electrode from an acidic solution of an Hg2+ salt, e.g. the nitrate. However, the oxidation of mercury metal to mercury salts or organomercurials at a low potential, 0.3-0.4 V versus the saturated calomel electrode (SCE), prevents the use of these electrodes for oxidations. 

Sometimes the reaction conditions used in this reaction are too harsh since heating is involved and rearrangement reactions can occur. A milder method that gives better results is to treat the alkene with mercuric acetate [Hg(OAc)2] then sodium borohydride. The reaction involves electrophilic addition of the mercury reagent to form an intermediate mercuronium ion. This reacts with water to give an organomercury intermediate. Reduction with sodium... 

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