Oxygen carbon-hydrogen activation reactions

Enzymes today use vitamin for at least three very different reactions, making it the Swiss army knife of enzyme cofactors. The active group on PLP is a reactive form of oxygen-carbon-hydrogen called an aldehyde (which has a memorable stink). PLP uses this aldehyde like a sharp blade to break and make bonds. Today, it is vital, as a vitamin should be. 

In our previous work [11], it has been shown that the reduction of NO with CH4 on Ga and ln/H-ZSM-5 catalysts proceeds through the reactions (1) and (2), and that CH4 was hardly activated by NO in the absence of oxygen on these catalysts. Therefore, NO2 plays an important role and the formation of NO2 is a necessary step for the reduction of NO with CH4. In the works of Li and Armor [17] and Cowan et al. [18], the rate-determining step in NO reduction with CH4 on Co-ferrierite and Co-ZSM-5 catalysts is involved in the dissociative adsorption of CH4, and the adsorbed NO2 facilitates the step to break the carbon-hydrogen bond in CH4. It is suggested that NO reduction by use of CH4 needs the formation of the adsorbed NO2, which can activate CH4. 

As shown in the manganese- and ruthenium-catalyzed intermolecular nitrene insertions, most of these results supposed the transfer of a nitrene group from iminoiodanes of formula PhI=NR to substrates that contain a somewhat activated carbon-hydrogen bond (Scheme 14). Allylic or benzylic C-H bonds, C-H bonds a to oxygen, and very recently, Q spz)-Y bonds of heterocycles have been the preferred reaction sites for the above catalytic systems, whereas very few examples of the tosylamidation of unactivated C-H bonds have been reported to date. 

All the above-mentioned initiators are very sensitive towards substances with active hydrogen. Care must therefore be taken to exclude acids, water, thiols, amines, and acetylene derivatives. Oxygen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbonyl compounds, and alkyl halides which can react with the initiator, also interfere with the reaction. Careful purification and drying of the starting materials and apparatus is, therefore, absolutely essential, especially when dealing with living polymers (see Example 3-19). 

In order to distinguish between the dihydridic and the monohydridic routes in hydrogen-transfer reactions, Backvall and coworkers developed an optically active a-deuterated alcohol. If the dihydridic route was occurring the deuterium would be scrambled between carbon and oxygen atoms whereas if the monohydridic... 

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