Organomercury compounds conversion

For a discussion of conversions of organomercury compounds to sulfur-containing compounds, see Larock, R.C. Ref. 300, p. 210. 

Ealy [ 75 ] also used conversion to alkyl mercury iodides for the gas chromatographic determination of organomercury compounds in benzene extracts of water. The iodides were then determined by gas chromatograph of the benzene extract on a glass column packed with 5% of cyclohexane-succinate on Anakron ABS (70-80 mesh) and operated at 200 °C with nitrogen (56 ml min-1) as carrier gas and electron capture detection. Good separation of chromatographic peaks was obtained for the mercury compounds as either chlorides, bromides, or iodides. The extraction recoveries were monitored by the use of alkylmer-cury compounds labelled with 203 Hg. 

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. 

A well-known reaction in organomercury chemistry consists of the conversion of arylmercuric chlorides to diarylmercury compounds by means of solutions of sodium iodide or sodium thiosulfate. Treatment of chloromercuriferrocene readily produces diferrocenylmercury (XXIX) under these conditions (63, 90). 

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