Polar addition electrophilic carbon

In Summary a-Hydroxyketones are available from addition of masked acyl anions to aldehydes and ketones. The conversion of aldehydes into the anions of the corresponding 1,3-dithiacyclohexanes (1,3-dithianes) illustrates the method of reverse polarization. The electrophilic carbon changes into a nucleophilic center, thereby allowing addition to an aldehyde or ketone carbonyl group. Thiazolium ions catalyze the dimerization of aldehydes, again through the transformation of the carbonyl carbon into a nucleophilic atom. 

Before beginning a detailed discussion of alkene reactions, let s review briefly some conclusions from the previous chapter. We said in Section 5.5 that alkenes behave as nucleophiles (Lewis bases) in polar reactions. The carbon-carbon double bond is electron-rich and can donate a pair of electrons to an electrophile (Lewis acid), for example, reaction of 2-methylpropene with HBr yields 2-bromo-2-methylpropane. A careful study of this and similar reactions by Christopher Ingold and others in the 1930s led to the generally accepted mechanism shown in Figure 6.7 for electrophilic addition reactions. 

We ll defer a detailed discussion of the mechanisms of these reductions until Chapter 19. For the moment, we ll simply note that they involve the addition of a nucleophilic hydride ion ( H ) to the positively polarized, electrophilic carbon atom of the carbonyl group. The initial product is an afkoxide ion, which is protonated by addition of H 0+ in a second step to yield the alcohol product. 

Like a carbonyl group, a nitrile group is strongly polarized and has an electrophilic carbon atom. Nitriles therefore react with nucleophiles to yield 5p2-hybridized imine anions in a reaction analogous to the formation of an sp3-hybridized alkoxide ion by nucleophilic addition to a carbonyl group. 

Rates of radical additions to alkenes are controlled mainly by the enthalpy of the reaction, which is the origin of regioselectivity in additions to unsymmetrical systems, with polar effects superimposed when there is a favorable match between the electrophilic or nucleophilic character of the radical and that of the radico-phile. For example, in the addition of an alkyl radical to methyl acrylate (2), the nucleophilic alkyl radical interacts favorably with the resonance structure 3. Polar effects are apparent in the representative rate constants shown in Figure 4.14 for additions of carbon radicals to terminal alkenes. Addition of the electron-deficient or electrophilic rert-butoxycarbonylmethyl radical to the electron-deficient molecule methyl acrylate is 10 times as fast as addition of... 

Additions to carbon-carbon multiple bonds initiated by electrophiles are generally governed by the Markovnikov rule. However, the rule must be modified to accom-ipodate such substrates as vinylsilanes. The so-called anti-Markovnikov hydro-halogenation [105] is to be contrasted to the Markovnikov addition for allylsilanes. In fact, when one recognizes the acceptor role of the silicon atom and applying the polarity alternation rule, the puzzling results become self-consistent. 

Haloamines and other precursors to aziridines can be generated by various polar additions . Three important groups of polar processes leading to aziridines are shown in Scheme 22. In the aza-Darzens route , the imine acts as an electrophile at carbon and later as a nucleophile at nitrogen, while the -haloenolate acts initially as a nucleophile at carbon and later as an electrophile at the same carbon. The roles of the two components are reversed for the polar aziridination route, which is related to the epoxidation reaction. In the -haloenone route, the 1,2-dihalide or -haloenone acts formally as a bis-electrophile while the amine acts as a bis-nucleophile. 

The addition of strongly polarized carbon-carbon double bonds (enols) to simple iminium ions, known as the Mannich reaction (equation 1), is a fundamentally important route to amines, especially in biosynthetic processes. 2 This reaction type is less synthetically useful if weakly polarized or unpolarized carbon-carbon iT-bonds are used as nucleophiles (equation 2). Because of the low electrophilic reactivity of the iminium moiety, the reverse reaction, known as the Grob fragmentation (equation 2), is often the more important process. However, if the iminium moiety has a carbonyl substituent on nitrogen, its... 

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