Pyrylium salts, preparations

Less reactive electrophilic reagents like those involved in acylation or alkylation apparently do not react with phenyl-substituted pyrylium salts the p-acylation of a phenyl group in position 3 of the pyrylium salt obtained on diacylation of allylbenzene (Section II, I), 3, a), and the p-l-butylation of phenyl groups in y-positions of pyrylium salts prepared by dehydrogenation of 1,5-diones by means of butyl cations (Section II, B, 2, f) probably occur in stages preceding the pyrylium ring closure. 

A detailed study of this dehydrogenative condensation in the presence of triphenylmethyl perchlorate or fluoroborate was made by Simalty-Siemiatycki and Fugnitto. The reaction is best carried out in refluxing acetic acid nitromethane or acetonitrile give less satisfactory results. Chalcone reacts in these conditions with phenylacet-aldehyde yielding 2,4-diphenylpyrylium with an unsubstituted a-position. This and similar 2-unsubstituted pyrylium salts prepared by this method are so reactive that they do not afford pyridines on treatment with ammonia in the usual conditions this behavior is similar to that of the unsubstituted pyrylium perchlorate. The reaction of... 

The first chemists to prepare a monocyclic pyrylium salt were von Kostanecki and Rossbach who in 189 6 described the fluorescence in dilute aqueous solution of the reaction product obtained from l,3,5-triphenjdpontane-l,5-dione (benzylidene-diacetophenone) and sulfuric acid. However, they failed to isolate the compound which caused the fluorescence and did not suspect that it was a pyrylium salt. It was only in 1916-1917 that Dilthey recognized that this fluorescence resulted from 2,4,6-triphenylpyrylium (3). 

Baeyer and Piccard were the first to prepare crystalline monocyclic pyrylium salts without hydroxy or alkoxy substituents, from y-pyrones and Grignard reagents in 1911. They ascribed a correct structure to these salts, although the bonds in the ring and the valency of the oxygen heteroatom remained contested topics for the next 20 years. The discussions around the formula of pyrylium... 

For the preparation of larger amounts of p3rrylium salts the method of Baeyer and Villiger was unsuitable. Therefore, the discovery by Dilthey" of new convenient methods for preparing aryl-substituted pyrylium salts in 1916 was an important event. By the studies of Dilthey, and a little later, of Schneider, many reactions of aryl-substituted pyrylium salts were discovered. 

Recent important developments consist in the synthesis of the unsubstituted pyrylium cation by Klagcs and Trager, the preparation of pyrylocyanines by Wizinger, the development of simple syntheses for alkyl-substituted pyrylium salts by Balaban and Nenitzescu, Praill, Schroth and Fischer, Schmidt, and Dorofeenko, the discovery of a variety of reactions by Dimroth and Hafner, and the study of physical properties by Balaban. 

It will be observed that most syntheses yield pyrylium salts in which positions 2,4, and 6 are substituted. Since according to formulas Ib-lc these positions have a partial positive charge, it can readily be understood why electron-donating substituents (hydroxy, alkoxy, alkyl, or aryl) in these positions stabilize the pyrylium salts. Only three pyrylium salts which do not have substituents in either a-position have been reported and few unsubstituted in y or in one a-position they are less stable toward hydrolysis, and in the case of perchlorates they explode more easily, than 2,4,6-trisubstituted compounds. In fact, the former are secondary, the latter tertiary carbonium ions. This fact also explains why the parent compound (1) was prepared only in 1953. 

First, mention should be made of the metathetical reaction, replacing an anion of a pyrylium salt by another-, when the solubility of the latter salt is lower than that of the former, the conversion is easy. In the opposite case, one has to find a solvent in which the solubilities are reversed (perchlorates are less soluble in water than chloroferrates or iodides, but in concentrated hydrochloric or hydroidic acids, respectively, the situation is reversed For preparing chlorides which are usually readily soluble salts, one can treat the less soluble chloroferrates with hydrogen sulfide or hydroxylamine. Another method is to obtain the pseudo base in an organic solvent and to treat it with an anhydrous acid. 

Tri- butylpyrylium can be obtained by dehydrogenating the corresponding 1,5-diketone with triphenylmethyl fluoroborate, It was shown by Farcasiu that 1,5-diketones can also he dehydrogenated and dehydrated to pyrylium salts by triphenylmethyl hexachloroantimonate generated in situ from chlorotriphenyl-methane and antimony pentachloride. Even pentaphenylpyrylium may thus be prepared at room temperature. ... 

It is known that tropylium may be prepared from tropylidene via hydride abstraction by PhgC or MegC carbonium ions therefore, it is very likely that here too the dehydrogenation is a hydride transfer from the 1,5-dione to an acceptor. A similar dehydrogenation of chromanones to chromones, with triphenylmethyl perchlorate was reported. A study of the electrooxidation of 1,5-diones on a rotating platinum electrode showed that 1,5-diaryl-substituted diones afford pyrylium salts in these conditions and that the half-wave potentials correlate with yields in chemical dehydrogenations. 

In comparing his three main S5mtheses of pyrylium salts (see Sections II,B,2,f C,2,g and D, l,b) besides his less general syntheses (see Sections II,B,2,e C,2,a and D,2,a), Dilthey stated that the type in Section D, l,b is the most convenient. This is the standard method for preparing 2,4,6-triarylpyTylium salts with identical 2- and 6-substituents, in particular 2,4,0-triphenylpyrylmm. 398,389 vepage yields are SQ% in the presence of BF3-Et.20 they can be raised to 40%. The reaction can be applied to substituted... 

Besides acetophenone, this reaction was also applied to p-chloro- andp-methoxyacetophenone, and even to an aliphatic ketone, acetone (although the yield was stated to be only half as large as that obtained from mesityl oxide, i.e., less than 30%, Dorofeenko and co-workers reported a 45% yield of 2,4,6-trimethylpyrylium perchlorate from acetone, acetic anhydride, and perchloric acid), and is the standard method for preparing pyrylium salts with identical substituents in positions 2 and 4. The acylating agent may be an anhydride in the presence of anhydrous or hydrated ferric chloride, or of boron fluoride, or the acid chloride with ferric chloride.Schneider and co-workers ... 

Method B involves the preparation of precursor of 2-alkyl-l-benzo-pyrylium salts, as shown in Scheme ll.50 2-Alkylbenzopyrylium salts have been prepared by condensation of salicylaldehyde with appropriate ketone in acetic acid or by alkylation or reduction of coumarin or chromone derivatives. Reaction of 2-alkylbenzopyrylium salts with salicylaldehyde gives directly a spirodibenzopyran or 2-vinynologue benzopyrylium salt 17 which then can be converted into the spirodibenzopyran by piperidine or pyridine. 

Three different fused systems have been reported in the literature thieno[3, 2 4,5]thieno[2,3-c]pyridine (f/r-thiophenes), thieno[2, 3 4,5]thieno[2,3-c]pyridine (tram- thiophenes) and thicno[3,2-g]thicno [3,2-d pyridine derivatives. So far, the parent thienothienopyridines have only been prepared via the corresponding pyrylium salts (see below) all others are benzo or extended carbocyclic derivatives, for example, thienothienoquinolines. 

Indolizines, aromatic heterocycles with 12-jr-elec-tron system salts, isomeric with indole and isoindole, are prepared in good yields from pyrylium salts with active a-methylene groups.215 216 Aromatics derived from pyrylium salts by substitution of one or two fi-CW group(s) with a heteroatom are also possible. 

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