Rearrangements aldehydes and ketones

In addition to fragmentation by the McLafferty rearrangement, aldehydes and ketones also undergo cleavage of the bond between the carbonyl group and the a carbon, a so-called a cleavage. Alpha cleavage yields a neutral radical and a resonance-stabilized acyl cation. 

A-Substituted pyrroles, furans and dialkylthiophenes undergo photosensitized [2 + 2] cycloaddition reactions with carbonyl compounds to give oxetanes. This is illustrated by the addition of furan and benzophenone to give the oxetane (138). The photochemical reaction of pyrroles with aliphatic aldehydes and ketones results in the regiospecific formation of 3-(l-hydroxyalkyl)pyrroles (e.g. 139). The intermediate oxetane undergoes rearrangement under the reaction conditions (79JOC2949). 

Radical cations generated in a mass spectrometer from aldehydes and ketones with y hydrogens undergo a rearrangement in which a y hydrogen is first transferred and a carbon-carbon bond is then cleaved, e.g. 

The pinacol rearrangement reaction is of limited synthetic importance although it can be a useful alternative to the standard methods for synthesis of aldehydes and ketones." Especially in the synthesis of ketones with special substitution pattern—e.g. a spiro ketone like 5—the pinacol rearrangement demonstrates its synthetic potential ... 

We see from these examples that many of the carbon nucleophiles we encountered in Chapter 10 are also nucleophiles toward aldehydes and ketones (cf. Reactions 10-104-10-108 and 10-110). As we saw in Chapter 10, the initial products in many of these cases can be converted by relatively simple procedures (hydrolysis, reduction, decarboxylation, etc.) to various other products. In the reaction with terminal acetylenes, sodium acetylides are the most common reagents (when they are used, the reaction is often called the Nef reaction), but lithium, magnesium, and other metallic acetylides have also been used. A particularly convenient reagent is lithium acetylide-ethylenediamine complex, a stable, free-flowing powder that is commercially available. Alternatively, the substrate may be treated with the alkyne itself in the presence of a base, so that the acetylide is generated in situ. This procedure is called the Favorskii reaction, not to be confused with the Favorskii rearrangement (18-7). ... 

If the reaction is carried out with ketone labeled in the C=0 group with the first pathway predicts that the product will contain all the " C in the C=0 carbon, while in the second pathway the label will be in the a carbon (demonstrating migration of oxygen). The results of such experiments have shown that in some cases only the C=0 carbon was labeled, in other cases only the a carbon, while in still others both carbons bore the label, indicating that in these cases both pathways were in operation. With a-hydroxy aldehydes and ketones, the process may stop after only one migration (this is called the a-ketol rearrangement). 

Examination of the reactions of a wide variety of olefins with TTN in methanol (92) has revealed that in the majority of cases oxidative rearrangement is the predominant reaction course (cf. cyclohexene, Scheme 9). Further examples are shown in Scheme 18, and the scope and limitations of this procedure for the oxidative rearrangement of various classes of simple olefins to aldehydes and ketones have been defined. From the experimental point of view these reactions are extremely simple, and most of them are... 

Sulfur ylides can also transfer substituted methylene units, such as isopropylidene (Entries 10 and 11) or cyclopropylidene (Entries 12 and 13). The oxaspiropentanes formed by reaction of aldehydes and ketones with diphenylsulfonium cyclopropylide are useful intermediates in a number of transformations such as acid-catalyzed rearrangement to cyclobutanones.285... 

Alkyl- and aryl-hydrazones of aldehydes and ketones readily peroxidise in solution and rearrange to azo hydroperoxides [1], some of which are explosively unstable [2], Dry samples of the p-bromo- and p-fluoro-hydroperoxybenzylazobenzenes, prepared by oxygenation of benzene solutions of the phenylhydrazones, exploded while on filter paper in the dark, initiated by vibration of the table or tapping the paper. Samples were later stored moist with benzene at —60°C to prevent explosion [3], A series of a-phenylazo hydroperoxides derived from the phenyl-or p-bromophcnyl-hydrazones of acetone, acetophenone or cyclohexanone, and useful for epoxidation of alkenes, are all explosive [4], The stability of several substituted phenylazo hydroperoxides was found to be strongly controlled by novel substituent effects [5],... 

The oxiranes obtained from the reaction of chloromethylsulphones with aldehydes and ketones can be isolated [26, 27], but tend to be unstable in the basic media. Rearrangement of the toluenesulphonyloxiranes produces the sulphonyl aldehydes (Scheme 6.15) [26]. When chiral chloromethylsulphonamides are used, asymmetric... 

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