Reactive carbon intermediates

Carbocations, carbon radicals, and carbanions are important reactive carbon intermediates in organic chemistry and their interconversions could be effected, in principle, by redox processes. With the cation pool method at hand, we next examined the redox-mediated interconversions of such reactive carbon species. 

Carbenes belong to a class of highly reactive carbon intermediates where the carbon atom has two nonbonding electrons. Methylene ( CH2) is the reference structure giving rise to the general nomenclature that characterizes divalent carbon species. These structures are simply named as substituted derivatives of methylene.129... 

The TT-allylpalladium complexes 241 formed from the ally carbonates 240 bearing an anion-stabilizing EWG are converted into the Pd complexes of TMM (trimethylenemethane) as reactive, dipolar intermediates 242 by intramolecular deprotonation with the alkoxide anion, and undergo [3 + 2] cycloaddition to give five-membered ring compounds 244 by Michael addition to an electron-deficient double bond and subsequent intramolecular allylation of the generated carbanion 243. This cycloaddition proceeds under neutral conditions, yielding the functionalized methylenecyclopentanes 244[148], The syn-... 

Alkylsilanes are not very nucleophilic because there are no high-energy electrons in the sp3-sp3 carbon-silicon bond. Most of the valuable synthetic procedures based on organosilanes involve either alkenyl or allylic silicon substituents. The dominant reactivity pattern involves attack by an electrophilic carbon intermediate at the double bond that is followed by desilylation. Attack on alkenylsilanes takes place at the a-carbon and results in overall replacement of the silicon substituent by the electrophile. Attack on allylic groups is at the y-carbon and results in loss of the silicon substituent and an allylic shift of the double bond. 

Transition metals have been used to trap and stabilize many different types of reactive intermediates, such as carbenes. Reactive silicon intermediates have only recently yielded to this approach. In the case of alkenes, for instance, transition metal complexes are generally made by exposing the alkene to a transition metal bearing suitable leaving groups (e.g., carbonyl). Unlike carbon-based intermediates, however, silicon-based analogs have been very difficult to prepare until recently. Unless... 

Figure 4.11 DSC can react with hydroxyl groups to create a succinimidyl carbonate intermediate that is highly reactive toward nucleophiles. In the presence of an amine-containing molecule, the active species can form stable carbamate linkages.

The alcohols are intermediates in the formation of ketones. Isomerization of the products is not observed. Hydroxylation at the 2-position is favored over that at the 3-position, and the latter is preferred over hydroxylation at the 4-position. Solubility and concentration in the reaction medium, intrazeolite diffusion of the reactants, steric hindrance at the reactive carbon center, and C-H bond strength influence the reactivity and H202 selectivity (Table XXIV). The advantage of the large-pore Ti-beta over TS-1 in the oxidation of bulky alkane molecules is shown by the results in Table XXV. 

Allenes are deprotonated by organolithium bases to yield allenyllithium intermediates. Subsequent treatment of these intermediates with various reactive carbon electrophiles can follow several pathways. An early study showed that terminal allenes bearing a free CH2 substituent afford mainly the direct SE2 substitution product A upon treatment first with BuLi and then with various unbranched alkyl iodides (Table 9.1) [5], A negligible amount of the SE2 propargylic product C was formed under these conditions Small amounts of regioisomeric allene alkylation products B were presumed to arise from 1,3-dilithioallenes. 

In contrast, the chemistry of higher metaUacumulenylidene complexes containing longer odd carbon chains has been comparatively less studied due to the synthetic difficulties in preparing such species. This fact relies on the increased reactivity of the unsaturated carbon chains towards electrophilic and nucleophilic attacks. In fact, only a limited number of stable pentatetraenylidene complexes have been described, while others have been proposed as highly reactive transient intermediates. 

Although this method of generating halomethylidenes has received relatively little attention, at present it is the only way to examine the chemistry of these interesting reactive intermediates. If the chemistry of monovalent carbon intermediates is to be elaborated, this appears to be the best way to produce these species. 

Alcohols and phenols can be attached to support-bound alcohol linkers as carbonates [467,665,666], although few examples of this have been reported. For the preparation of carbonates, the support-bound alcohol needs to be converted into a reactive carbonic acid derivative by reaction with phosgene or a synthetic equivalent thereof, e.g. disuccinimidyl carbonate [665], carbonyl diimidazole [157], or 4-nitrophenyl chloro-formate [467] (see Section 14.7). The best results are usually obtained with support-bound chloroformates. The resulting intermediate is then treated with an alcohol and a base (DIPEA, DMAP, or DBU), which furnishes the unsymmetrical carbonate. Carbonates are generally more resistant towards nucleophilic cleavage than esters, but are less stable than carbamates. Aryl carbonates are easily cleaved by nucleophiles and are therefore of limited utility as linkers for phenols. 

Trihalomethanes, such as trichloromethane (chloroform), are quite reactive toward strong base. The base, such as hydroxide, removes the hydrogen of HCC13 as a proton much more rapidly than it attacks the carbon in the SK2 manner. The carbanion so formed, Cl3C e, is unstable and loses chloride ion to form a highly reactive neutral intermediate, CC12, called dichlorocarbene ... 

The other alkanes were found to be much less reactive. Cyclohexane gave a cyclohexanol-one mixture, and adamantane was preferentially hydroxylated at the tertiary positions cis-decalin gave a mixture of cis- and frnns-9-decanol (together with 1- and 2-decalones), suggesting the transient formation of radical carbon intermediates, which were also revealed by trapping experiments with CC14. 

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