Alkane rearrangements

Isomerization (rearrangement) of hydrocarbons is of substantial practical importance. Straight-chain alkanes obtained from petroleum... 

Reforming is the conversion primarily of naphthenes and alkanes to aromatics, but other reactions also occur under commercial conditions. Platinum or platinum/rhenium are the hydrogenation/ dehydrogenation component of the catalyst and alumina is the acid component responsible for skeletal rearrangements. 

The bases most commonly used to effect rearrangement are hydroxides, alkoxides, alcoholic sodium bicarbonate and, in some instances, amines. In the rearrangement of a series of l,l-dibromo-2-keto-alkanes, where a direct comparison has been made between triethylamine and sodium methoxide, the amine has given slightly better results ... 

Similar preference in replacement by fluorine of tertiary versus secondary and secondary versus primary hydrogens is observed in the fluorination of alkanes with chlorine trifluoride in 1,2-difluorotetrachloroethane at room temperature (Table 3). Skeletal rearrangements accompany the fluorination [31]... 

Duffield and coworkers65 studied the El- induced mass spectra of five arene- (215-219) and four alkane sulfonylthioureas (220-223) and observed two rearrangement processes, namely loss of S02 from 215-219 and the elimination of ArS02 and RS02 with the thione sulfur atom from 215-223. The other fragmentations involved simple bond cleavages with and without hydrogen transfer (equation 48). The loss of H2S was evident for all the compounds studied except 221 and 222. It was, however, found to be a thermal and not an ionization process. 

Thermal rearrangement of trans-l,2-dibromo compounds is known in the literature (refs. 6-10). In all case studies only one pair of bromine in each organic molecular was studied. Bellucci (ref. 10), for example, studied the kinetics of such trans-l,2-cyclo alkanes as cyclopentane, hexane, octane, etc. The intermediates suggested as an explanation for the experimental results are bromonium bromide I in polar solvents and four center transition state II in non-polar solvents. 

This has also been accomplished with concentrated H2SO4 saturated with CO. Not surprisingly, only tertiary halides perform satisfactorily secondary halides give mostly rearrangement products. An analogous reaction takes place with alkanes possessing a tertiary hydrogen, for example. 

It was mentioned above that even alkanes undergo Wagner-Meerwein rearrangements if treated with Lewis acids and a small amount of initiator. An interesting application of this reaction is the conversion of tricyclic molecules to adamantane and its derivatives. It has been found that all tricyclic alkanes containing 10 carbons are converted to adamantane by treatment with a Lewis acid such as AICI3. If the substrate contains more than 10 carbons, alkyl-substituted adamantanes are produced. The lUPAC name for these reactions is Schleyer adamantization. Two examples are... 

More than three decades ago, skeletal rearrangement processes using alkane or cycloalkane reactants were observed on platinum/charcoal catalysts (105) inasmuch as the charcoal support is inert, this can be taken as probably the first demonstration of the activity of metallic platinum as a catalyst for this type of reaction. At about the same time, similar types of catalytic conversions over chromium oxide catalysts were discovered (106, 107). Distinct from these reactions was the use of various types of acidic catalysts (including the well-known silica-alumina) for effecting skeletal reactions via carbonium ion mechanisms, and these led... 

In 1978, Schwartz and Gell found that CO would induce reductive elimination of alkane in various zirconocene alkyl hydride complexes with concurrent formation of Cp2Zr(CO)2 (2) (52,53). It was postulated that CO initially coordinates to the 6-e complex 23 forming the coordina-tively saturated species 24 which can then reductively eliminate alkane and/or rearrange to a zirconocene acyl hydride intermediate. When R = cyclohexylmethyl, methylcyclohexane reductively eliminated and Cp2Zr(CO)2 was isolated in 25% yield. 

Catalytic cracking When a mixture of alkanes from the gas oil fraction (C12 and higher) is heated at very high temperature (-500 °C) in the presence of a variety of catalysts, the molecules break apart and rearrange to smaller, more highly branched alkanes containing 5-10 carbon atoms. 

The rearrangement of platinacyclobutanes to alkene complexes or ylide complexes is shown to involve an initial 1,3-hydride shift (a-elimina-tion), which may be preceded by skeletal isomerization. This isomerization can be used as a model for the bond shift mechanism of isomerization of alkanes by platinum metal, while the a-elimination also suggests a possible new mechanism for alkene polymerisation. New platinacyclobutanes with -CH2 0SC>2Me substituents undergo solvolysis with ring expansion to platinacyclopentane derivatives, the first examples of metallacyclobutane to metallacyclopentane ring expansion. The mechanism, which may also involve preliminary skeletal isomerization, has been elucidated by use of isotopic labelling and kinetic studies. 

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