Radical Rearrangements of Esters

During this early period, a very ingenious free-radical route to polyesters was used to introduce weak linkages into the backbones of hydrocarbon polymers and render them susceptible to bio degradabihty (128—131). Copolymerization of ketene acetals with vinyl monomers incorporates an ester linkage into the polymer backbone by rearrangement of the ketene acetal radical as illustrated in equation 13. The ester is a potential site for biological attack. The chemistry has been demonstrated with ethylene (128—131), acryhc acid (132), and styrene (133). 

Rearrangement of trivalent (5-hexenyl)Co(salen) proceeds via a radical chain process leading to the isomeric cyclopentylmethyl complex.1387 The efficiency with which this rearrangement occurs is dependent on the presence of trace impurities or 02. The selective reaction of alcohols (ROH) with arylglyoxals (ArCOCHO) to give a-aryl-a-hydroxyacetic esters ArCH(0H)C02R is catalyzed by compounds of this family.1388... 

Renaud and co-workers used 78 for the synthesis of (-)-phaseolinic acid (6) and (-)-pertusarinic acid (8) (Scheme 12) [32, 33]. Radical addition of dimethyl phenylselenomalonate to 78 proceeded with rearrangement of the bicyclics to yield the seleno-acetal 79 [34]. After reductive deselenylation and Baeyer-Villiger oxidation treatment of 80 with BU4NI and BBr3 led to a simultaneous cleavage of the ether, the lactone, and the methyl ester func-... 

To avoid the formation of ketenes by alkoxide elimination, ester enolates are often prepared at low temperatures. If unreactive alkyl halides are used, the addition of BU4NI to the reaction mixture can be beneficial [134]. Examples of the radical-mediated a-alkylation of support-bound a-haloesters are given in Table 5.4. Further methods for C-alkylating esters on insoluble supports include the Ireland-Claisen rearrangement of O-allyl ketene acetals (Entry 6, Table 13.16). Malonic esters and similar strongly C,H-acidic compounds have been C-alkylated with Merrifield resin [237,238]. 

---