Ring oxygenation

Depending on the oxidation conditions, benzene and its substituted derivatives, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons may be converted to phenols and quinones. Alkoxylation and acyloxylation are also possible. Addition reactions may afford dihydrodiols, epoxides, and endoperoxides. 

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Orienf fhe Haworth formula of the carbohydrate with the ring oxygen at the back and the anomeric carbon at the right... 

Eleclron pair on ring oxygen can slabihze carbocalion al anomenc posilion only... 

Rea.ctlons, Butyrolactone undergoes the reactions typical of y-lactones. Particularly characteristic are ring openings and reactions in which ring oxygen is replaced by another heteroatom. There is also marked reactivity of the hydrogen atoms alpha to the carbonyl group. 

Butyrolactone and hydrogen sulfide heated over an alumina catalyst result in replacement of ring oxygen by sulfur (151). 

The main raw material required for the production of viscose is ceUulose (qv), a natural polymer of D-glucose (Fig. 1). The repeating monomer unit is a pair of anhydroglucose units (AGU). CeUulose and starch (qv) are identical but for the way in which the ring oxygen atoms alternate from side to side of the polymer chain (beta linkages) in ceUulose, but remain on the same side (alpha linkages) in starch. 

Fig. 3. Spectral sensitizing dyes for silver haUdes. (a) Blue sensitizers (400—500 nm) are designated BN (b) green sensitizers (500—600 nm) are designated GN (the ring oxygen may be replaced by N(R)) (c) red sensitizers (600—700 nm) are designated RN (d) MN designates a merocyanine dye and (e),...

An electronegative substituent adjacent to a ring oxygen atom also shows a preference for an axial orientation. This is known as the anomeric effect , and is particularly significant to the conformations of carbohydrates (B-71MI20100, B-83MI20100). 

Amines are insufficiently nucleophilic to react with most azoles which do not contain a ring oxygen, and the stronger nucleophile NH2 is required. When treated with amide ions, thiazoles can be aminated in the 2-position by NaNHa at 150 °C. Only TV-substituted condensed imidazoles such as 1-alkylbenzimidazole react in such Chichibabin reactions. Imidazoles are aminated by alkaline NH2OH. 

A point to be emphasized about glycoside fonnation is that, despite the presence of a number of other hydroxyl groups in the carbohydrate, only the anomeric hydroxyl group is replaced. This is because a carbocation at the anomeric position is stabilized by the ring oxygen and is the only one capable of being fomned under the reaction conditions. 

Electron pair on ring oxygen can stabilize carbocation at anomeric position only. 

Auwers and others soon discovered that the transformation 3 —> 6 did not consistently give flavonols such as 2. For example, alcoholic alkali treatment of dibromide 11 produced 2-benzoyl-benzofuran-3-one 12 instead of the corresponding flavonol. The same observation was made by Robert Robinson in a failed attempt to make datiscetin in 19257 It has reported that when there is a meta (to the coumarone ring oxygen) substituent such as methyl or methoxy, flavonol formation is hindered, whereas methyl, methoxy, and chlorine substituents at the ortho and para positions are conducive to flavonol formation. ... 

While the above studies were in progress results from dioxane derivatives were published (19,94) which support all of the comments and cautions we have made above. Additional reports have been made of a long-range coupling across a ring oxygen in an unsaturated pentopy-ranose derivative (17) and in a saturated furanose derivative (20). 

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