Selenide —> selenoxide oxidation

Fig. 17.35. A one-pot combination of a selenide selenoxide oxidation and a selenoxide "pyrolysis" (see Figures 4.10-4.12 for the mechanism).

Selenides are oxidized to selenoxides that normally suffer an in situ elimination.111 Amines are destroyed,112 although its protection as amides or carbamates prevents the reaction with Collins reagent. Lactols are very quickly oxidized to lactones,113 unless a very great steric hindrance is present.114 Tertiary lactols suffer oxidation via its opened hydroxyketone form.115 The oxidation of tertiary lactols may be slow, so that an alcohol can be selectively oxidized. 

Several different functional groups can be introduced by selenenylation. The benzeneselenenyl ion tolerates a wide range of anionic groups. However, with differing anionic moieties the reactivity of the benzeneselenenyl ion varies greatly. All adducts can be subsequently converted to either allylic or vinylic moieties by the syn elimination of the corresponding selenoxide (oxidized selenide). 

Selenides may be oxidized by various reagents to selenoxides. When the lesulting selenoxides bear a -hydrogen atom syn elimination giving alkenes occurs readily at room temperature widi formation of selenenic acid by-products (Scheme 13). For allylic selenides, the oxidation does not lead te conjugated... 

Diphenyl selenide is oxidized with peroxyacetic acid at room temperature to diphenyl selenoxide hydrate, C6H5Se(OH)2, in 43% yield after 2 h [1198]. Benzyl phenyl selenide is oxidized to benzyl phenyl selenoxide by sodium periodate in aqueous methanol at 0 °C in 95% yield and by iodobenzene dichloride in aqueous pyridine at -40 °C in 85% yield [773]. 

Several oxidants can be used for oxidation to the selenoxides. Reich considers hydrogen peroxide the oxidant of choice under aqueous conditions this oxidation can be carried out directly without isolation of the selenide. The oxidation can also be carried out in a two-phase system (H2O-CH2CI2) in this case addition of pyridine as buffer is usually advantageous. Ozonization in CH2CI2 is useful where the presence of water is undesirable. m-Chloroperbenzoic acid has been used to some extent in the case of unsaturated substrates, since selenoxides are formed more readily than epoxides. Reich considers sodium metaperiodate the reagent of last resort because of expense and necessity for an aqueous methanoUc medium. 

Selenoxide elimination. The yield of alkenes from alky) phenyl selenoxides and alkyl methyl selenoxides under usual conditions (30% H2O2, O3, Oa) tends to be rather low because of formation of the original selenide. Much higher yields are obtained if the selenides are oxidized with /-butyl hydroperoxide (4 equiv.) in the presence of basic alumina (8 equiv.) in THF at 55°. No epoxida-tion is observed under these conditions. A less satisfactory method is ozonization in CH2CI2 in the presence of 1-3 equiv. of triethylamine. ... 

Second, among the newer methods developed to effect the elimination to produce the least substituted alkene is one that involves converting the alcohol to a selenium derivative. In this procedure, a primary alcohol is treated with o-nitrophenyl sele-nocyanate in a suitable solvent such as (THF, oxacyclopentane) in the presence of a phosphine (such as tri-n-butylphosphine [(CH3CH2CH2CH2)3P]) to produce the primary alkyl selenide (Scheme 8.74). Then, in a second step, the primary alkyl o-nitrophenyl selenide is oxidized with hydrogen peroxide to yield the corresponding selenoxide, which readily undergoes elimination to the alkene. Scheme 8.74 shows the application of the sequence of reactions described above to cyclohexylmethanol and the resulting formation of the exo-methylenecyclohexane. 

The 7 a-bromo steroid (9) can also be treated with sodium phenyl selenolate (41). The resultant 7 P-phenyl selenide (13) can be oxidized and the corresponding phenyl selenoxide elirninated to form the 7-dehydtocholesteryl ester (11). 

Selenides (R2Se) can be oxidized to selenoxides and selenones. It is possible to oxidize a thioether to a sulfoxide in the presence of an alcohol moiety using MnOa/HCl. ... 

A 30% solution of hydrogen peroxide in water was purchased from Mallinckrodt Chemical Works. The reaction requires 2 molar equivalents of hydrogen peroxide, the first to oxidize the selenide to the selenoxide and the second to oxidize the elimination product, benzeneselenenic acid, to benzeneseleninic acid. The submitters recommend that the hydrogen peroxide solution be taken from a recently opened bottle, or titrated to verify its concentration. 

Selenoxides are even more reactive than sulfoxides toward (3-elimination. In fact, many selenoxides react spontaneously when generated at room temperature. Synthetic procedures based on selenoxide eliminations usually involve synthesis of the corresponding selenide followed by oxidation and in situ elimination. We have already discussed examples of these procedures in Section 4.3.2, where the conversion of ketones and esters to their a, (3-unsaturated derivatives is considered. Selenides can... 

The selenides prepared by any of these methods can be converted to selenoxides by such oxidants as hydrogen peroxide, sodium metaperiodate, peroxycarboxylic acids, 1-butyl hydroperoxide, or ozone. 

The organic substrates in Chart 8 can be divided into two main categories in which (i) the oxidation of olefins, sulfides, and selenides involves oxygen atom transfer to yield epoxides, sulfoxides, and selenoxides, respectively, whereas (ii) the oxidation of hydroquinones and quinone dioximes formally involves loss of two electrons and two protons to yield quinones and dinitrosobenzenes, respectively. In order to provide a unifying mechanistic theme for the seemingly disparate transformations in Chart 8, we note that nitrogen dioxide exists in equilibrium with its dimeric forms, namely, the predominant N—N bonded dimer 02N—N02 and the minor N—O bonded isomer ONO—N02 (equation 88). 

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