Silanes rearrangement

Scheme 6.41 Brook rearrangement- or Michael addition-induced epojq silane rearrangements.

Bromophenyl trimethylsilyl ether, 41 a-Bromovinyl(triphenyl)silane, 69 Brook rearrangement, 83-4 t-Butoxide-cntalysed condensation, 43 (/ )-4-t-Butyl l-(trimethylsilyloxy)-... 

This excellent method of oxidative cleavage (/) of carbon-silicon bonds requires that the silane carry an electronegative substituent (2), such as alkoxy or fluoro. Either hydrogen peroxide or mcpba may be used as oxidant, and the alcohol is produced with retention of configuration (3). Fluoride ion is normally a mandatory additive in what is believed to be a fluoride ion-assisted rearrangement of a silyl peroxide, as shown below ... 

Extension of these processes to provide enantio-enriched products was successfully applied after desymmetrization of the starting materials. An example is shown below (Reaction 76), where silane-mediated xanthate deoxygenation-rearrangement-electrophile trapping afforded the conversion of (+)-94 to (+)-95 in 56% yield. ... 

Barton and co-workers" performed flash vacuum pyrolysis (FVP) on trimethyl-silylvinylmethylchlorosilane (30), resulting in the production of trimethylchlorosi-lane (30%), trimethylvinylsilane (11.5%), and most interestingly, ethynylmethyl-silane (34, 11.9%). A proposed mechanism for the synthesis of 34 (Scheme 10) begins with the lo.ss of trimethylchlorosilane to form silylene 31, which can rearrange either to silaallene 32 or to silirene 33, both of which can lead to the isolated ethynylsilane. 

There are, however, serious problems that must be overcome in the application of this reaction to synthesis. The product is a new carbocation that can react further. Repetitive addition to alkene molecules leads to polymerization. Indeed, this is the mechanism of acid-catalyzed polymerization of alkenes. There is also the possibility of rearrangement. A key requirement for adapting the reaction of carbocations with alkenes to the synthesis of small molecules is control of the reactivity of the newly formed carbocation intermediate. Synthetically useful carbocation-alkene reactions require a suitable termination step. We have already encountered one successful strategy in the reaction of alkenyl and allylic silanes and stannanes with electrophilic carbon (see Chapter 9). In those reactions, the silyl or stannyl substituent is eliminated and a stable alkene is formed. The increased reactivity of the silyl- and stannyl-substituted alkenes is also favorable to the synthetic utility of carbocation-alkene reactions because the reactants are more nucleophilic than the product alkenes. 

Normally, only a small stoichiometric excess (2-30 mol%) of silane is necessary to obtain good preparative yields of hydrocarbon products. However, because the capture of carbocation intermediates by silanes is a bimolecular occurrence, in cases where the intermediate may rearrange or undergo other unwanted side reactions such as cationic polymerization, it is sometimes necessary to use a large excess of silane in order to force the reduction to be competitive with alternative reaction pathways. An extreme case that illustrates this is the need for eight equivalents of triethylsilane in the reduction of benzyl alcohol to produce only a 40% yield of toluene the mass of the remainder of the starting alcohol is found to be consumed in the formation of oligomers by bimolecular Friedel-Crafts-type side reactions that compete with the capture of the carbocations by the silane.129... 

An example of an alcohol that can undergo rapid skeletal rearrangement is 3,3-dimethyl-2-phenyl-2-butanol (Eq. 29). Attempts to reduce this alcohol in dichloromethane solution with l-naphthyl(phenyl)methylsilane yield only a mixture of the rearranged elimination products 3,3-dimethyl-2-phenyl-l-butene and 2,3-dimethy 1-3-phenyl-1 -butene when trifluoroacetic acid or methanesulfonic acid is used. Use of a 1 1 triflic acid/triflic anhydride mixture with a 50 mol% excess of the silane gives good yields of the unrearranged reduction product 3,3-dimethyl-2-phenylbutane, but also causes extensive decomposition of the silane.126 In contrast, introduction of boron trifluoride gas into a dichloromethane solution of the alcohol and a 10 mol% excess of the silane... 

A mixture of exo- and endo-isomers of 5-methylbicylo[2.2.1]hept-2-ene is hydrogenated with the aid of five equivalents of triethylsilane and 13.1 equivalents of trifluoroacetic acid to produce a 45% yield of < <7o-2-methylbicylo[2.2.1] heptane (Eq. 71). The same product is formed in 37% yield after only five minutes. The remainder of the reaction products is a mixture of three isomeric secondary exo-methylbicylo[2.2.1]heptyl trifluoroacetates that remains inert to the reaction conditions. Use of triethylsilane-l-d gives the endo-2-methylbicylo-[2.2.1]heptane product with an exo-deuterium at the tertiary carbon position shared with the methyl group. This result reflects the nature of the internal carbocation rearrangements that precede capture by the silane.230... 

Allyl acrylates have been reacted with the combination of ClMe2SiH/ [(cod)RhCl]2/Me-DuPHOS (l,2-bis(2,5-dimethylphospholano)benzene) to bring about reduction of the ,/l-unsaturated ester followed by a Claisen rearrangement to the y,8-unsaturated carboxylic acid (Eq. 293)474 Other silanes did not perform as well in this sequence. 

Careful studies by C. Eabom have shown that electrophilic aromatic substitution of silicon is faster than substitution of hydrogen. Thus a silicon in an aromatic ring directs substitution with hardly any rearrangement. This technique is particularly useful for preparation of specifically deuterated arenes as protolysis (deuterolysis) or aryl silanes is rapid. 

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