Peterson/Chan olefination

Wittig olefination reaction ( the phosphorus way ) has been a very popular reaction in organic synthesis. However, it is now in competition with Peterson/Chan olefination reaction327 ( the silicon way ). Formally, this latter involves the formation of a (3-silyl heteroatomic anion, which in the absence of an electrophile undergoes a (3-shift of the silyl moiety to the heteroatom (usually oxygen) with final elimination of silylated heteroatomic anion and formation of the olefin. 

The Peterson reaction has two more advantages over the Wittig reaction 1. it is sometimes less vulnerable to sterical hindrance, and 2. groups, which are susceptible to nucleophilic substitution, are not attacked by silylated carbanions. The introduction of a methylene group into a sterically hindered ketone (R.K. Boeckman, Jr., 1973) and the syntheses of olefins with sulfur, selenium, silicon, or tin substituents (D. Seebach, 1973 B.T. Grdbel, 1974, 1977) illustrate useful applications. The reaction is, however, more limited and time consuming than the Wittig reaction, since metallated silicon derivatives are difficult to synthesize and their reactions are rarely stereoselective (T.H. Chan, 1974 ... 

The synthesis of alkylidene and allylidene cyclopropanes reported in this section takes advantage of the availability 77 78,81 a-82) of l-(l-silyl) cyclopropyl carbinols from a-lithio cyclopropylsilanes and carbonyl compounds. It, however, suffers from the sometimes modest yields obtained when ketones are involved (Schemes 21 a, 47) in the Peterson olefination reaction 77,78,81a) (Schemes 21, 48). This reaction seems much more difficult to achieve than when straight-chain analogs are involved and resembles the cases of allenes 1211 and chlorocyclopropenes120) reported by Chan. For example, thionyl chloride alone is not suitable for that purpose 77,136) but further addition of tetra-n-butylammonium fluoride (20 °C, 15 hrs) leads to the formation of undecylidene cyclopropane77,136 in 46% yield from the corresponding l-(l-silyl)cyclopropyl... 

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