Soluble phase-transfer catalysts

A detailed description of the structural requirements and parameters ruling the activity of the most common soluble phase-transfer catalysts was reported recently (] ). This account concerns our latest results on phase-transfer catalysis. 

Compare electrostatic potential maps for tetrabenzyl-ammonium ion and tetraethylammonium ion with that of benzyltrimethylammonium ion. Are they likely to be as effective or more effective as phase-transfer catalysts as benzyltrimethylammonium ion Explain. (Hint Predict solubility properties for the three ions.)... 

Baneijee et al. reported a number of soluble poly-imido [134], polyazomethine [135], and polyazoxy phos-phonates [136] by the two phase polycondensation method with or without any phase transfer catalyst. Resulting polymers exhibit high thermal stability and fire retardancy. 

Of course, the most practical and synthetically elegant approach to the asymmetric Darzens reaction would be to use a sub-stoichiometric amount of a chiral catalyst. The most notable approach has been the use of chiral phase-transfer catalysts. By rendering the intermediate etiolate 86 (Scheme 1.24) soluble in the reaction solvent, the phase-transfer catalyst can effectively provide the enolate with a chiral environment in which to react with carbonyl compounds. 

Dichloro monomers can also be polymerized with bisphenols in the presence of fluorides as promoting agents.78 The fluoride ions promote the displacement of the chloride sites to form more reactive fluoride sites, which react with phenolate anion to form high-molecular-weight polymers. Adding 5-10 mol % phase transfer catalysts such as A-alkyl-4-(dialkylamino)pyridium chlorides significantly increased the nucleophilicity and solubility of phenoxide anion and thus shortened the reaction time to one fifth of the uncatalyzed reaction to achieve the same molecular weight.79... 

Although phase-transfer catalysis has been most often used for nucleophilic substitutions, it is not confined to these reactions. Any reaction that needs an insoluble anion dissolved in an organic solvent can be accelerated by an appropriate phase transfer catalyst. We shall see some examples in later chapters. In fact, in principle, the method is not even limited to anions, and a small amount of work has been done in transferring cations, radicals, and molecules. The reverse type of phase-transfer catalysis has also been reported transport into the aqueous phase of a reactant that is soluble in organic solvents. ... 

The catalysts mentioned above are soluble. Certain cross-linked polystyrene resins, as well as alumina and silica gel, have been used as insoluble phase-transfer catalysts. These, called triphase catalysts, have the advantage of simplified product work up and easy and quantitative catalyst recovery, since the catalyst can easily be separated from the product by filtration. 

This work was initiated for the purpose of evaluating the feasibility of synthesizing hexyl acetate (ROAc) fi-om n-hexyl bromide (RBr) and sodium acetate (NaOAc) by a novel PTC technique. In this new technique, the solid-liquid reaction was catalyzed by a catalyst-rich liquid phase in a batch reactor. Because there a solid phase and two liquid phases coexist, it is called as a SLL-PTC system [3]. Actually, this liquid phase is the third liquid phase in the tri-liquid PTC system. It might be formed when the phase-transfer catalyst is insoluble or slightly soluble in both aqueous and organic phases. Both aqueous and organic reactants can easily transfer to this phase where the intrinsic reaction occurs [4, 5]. 

Phase-transfer catalysis is a special type of catalysis. It is based on the addition of an ionic (sometimes non-ionic like PEG400) catalyst to a two-phase system consisting of a combination of aqueous and organic phases. The ionic species bind with the reactant in one phase, forcing transfer of this reactant to the second (reactive) phase in which the reactant is only sparingly soluble without the phase-transfer catalyst (PTC). Its concentration increases because of the transfer, which results in an increased reaction rate. Quaternary amines are effective PTCs. Specialists involved in process development should pay special attention to the problem of removal of phase-transfer catalysts from effluents and the recovery of the catalysts. Solid PTCs could diminish environmental problems. The problem of using solid supported PTCs seems not to have been successfully solved so far, due to relatively small activity and/or due to poor stability. 

Reduction of azides is a classical approach to primary amine synthesis. Treatment of 17 with sodium azide in DMF or in THF/H2O mixtures in the presence of phase transfer catalysts effects a quantitative conversion to the corresponding polymeric azide, 27. Recently the reduction of azides to primary amines via hydrolysis of iminophosphoranes produced by interaction of the azide with triethyl phosphite was reported.30 Application of this technique to the azidomethyl polymer, 27, as shown below, failed to produce a soluble polyamine. 

Alternatively, the Sn2 nucleophilic substitution reaction between alcohols (phenols) and organic halides under basic conditions is the classical Williamson ether synthesis. Recently, it was found that water-soluble calix[n]arenes (n = 4, 6, 8) containing trimethylammonium groups on the upper rim (e.g., calix[4]arene 5.2) were inverse phase-transfer catalysts for alkylation of alcohols and phenols with alkyl halides in aqueous NaOH solution to give the corresponding alkylated products in good-to-high yields.56... 

The water-soluble calix[n]arenes 6.3 (n = 4, 6 and 8) containing trimethylammonium groups act as efficient inverse phase-transfer catalysts in the nucleophilic substitution reaction of alkyl and arylalkyl halides with nucleophiles in water (Eq. 6.19).40 In the presence of various surfactants (cationic, zwitterionic and anionic), the reactions of different halides and ketones show that the amount of ketone alkylation is much higher and that the reactions are faster in the presence than in the absence of surfactant aggregates.41 The hydrolysis of the halide is minimized in the presence of cationic or zwitterionic surfactants. 

When reacting two phases that are not very soluble in each other, for example when carrying out nucleophilic substitution reactions, phase transfer catalysts should be considered when scaling down from equipment with poor mixing characteristic, rather than buying new equipment. 

Several microwave-assisted protocols for soluble polymer-supported syntheses have been described. Among the first examples of so-called liquid-phase synthesis were aqueous Suzuki couplings. Schotten and coworkers presented the use of polyethylene glycol (PEG)-bound aryl halides and sulfonates in these palladium-catalyzed cross-couplings [70]. The authors demonstrated that no additional phase-transfer catalyst (PTC) is needed when the PEG-bound electrophiles are coupled with appropriate aryl boronic acids. The polymer-bound substrates were coupled with 1.2 equivalents of the boronic acids in water under short-term microwave irradiation in sealed vessels in a domestic microwave oven (Scheme 7.62). Work-up involved precipitation of the polymer-bound biaryl from a suitable organic solvent with diethyl ether. Water and insoluble impurities need to be removed prior to precipitation in order to achieve high recoveries of the products. 

Another palladium-catalyzed coupling reaction that has been successfully performed on soluble polymers is the Sonogashira coupling. Xia and Wang have presented an approach in which the PEG 4000 utilized simultaneously serves as polymeric support, solvent, and phase-transfer catalyst (PTC) in both the coupling and... 

Hydrophobic ammonium ions which are phase transfer catalysts such as tri-n-octylalkylammonium ions (C8H17)3NR+X (R = Me, Et, CH2CH2OH X = Cl, Br, MeS03) are surface active but appear to form small nonmicellar aggregates (Okahata et al., 1977 Kunitake et al., 1980). The salts of these ions are only sparingly soluble in water, but they are very effective at speeding reactions of hydrophobic nucleophilic anions. 

In general, there are two immiscible phases in reaction mixture, viz. an aqueous phase which contains a salt (a base or nucleophile) and the other an organic phase containing the substrate which is expected to react with the salt. When a phase transfer catalyst (usually contains a lipophilic cation) is added to the reaction mixture, the lipophilic cation (which has solubility in both aqueous and organic phases), exchanges anions with the excess of anions in the salt solution. 

The unique ability of crown ethers to form stable complexes with various cations has been used to advantage in such diverse processes as isotope separations (Jepson and De Witt, 1976), the transport of ions through artificial and natural membranes (Tosteson, 1968) and the construction of ion-selective electrodes (Ryba and Petranek, 1973). On account of their lipophilic exterior, crown ether complexes are often soluble even in apolar solvents. This property has been successfully exploited in liquid-liquid and solid-liquid phase-transfer reactions. Extensive reviews deal with the synthetic aspects of the use of crown ethers as phase-transfer catalysts (Gokel and Dupont Durst, 1976 Liotta, 1978 Weber and Gokel, 1977 Starks and Liotta, 1978). Several studies have been devoted to the identification of the factors affecting the formation and stability of crown-ether complexes, and many aspects of this subject have been discussed in reviews (Christensen et al., 1971, 1974 Pedersen and Frensdorf, 1972 Izatt et al., 1973 Kappenstein, 1974). 

Trioctylmethylammonium chloride [7] has been widely used as a phase transfer catalyst. This compound is slightly soluble in water and forms aggregates at very low concentrations (Okahata et al., 1977). Figure 3 shows surface tension data, which indicate aggregation occurring at 10-4-10-5 M. The dye probe method and conductance measurements suggest that the... 

Phase transfer catalysts can be used to increase the solubility of reactants in the phase where the reaction takes place. Usually these catalysts are organophilic salts that pair with anionic reactants to increase their solubility in organic solvents. Phase transfer catalysis is described in more detail in Chapter 5. 

As we have seen earlier in this chapter, metal catalysts may be made soluble in water by careful design of the ligands around them. Metal catalysed reactions may also be conducted under phase transfer conditions. Here, by contrast, the metal catalyst usually resides in the organic phase and not the aqueous phase. The use of a phase transfer catalyst in these systems may be to transfer a water-soluble metal catalyst into the organic layer, or else to ensure a supply of water-soluble substrate or reagent to a catalyst already resident in the organic phase. An example of the former is the use of methyltrioctylammonium chloride to extract aqueous RhCL... 

Phase-transfer techniques are widely used for the preparation of polymers. For example, potassium fluoride is used to produce poly(etherketone)s under phase-transfer conditions (Scheme 10.18). Use of this reagent allows the chloroaro-matics to be used as starting material as opposed to the more expensive flu-oroaromatics that are usually employed [23]. This method is suitable for the synthesis of high molecular weight semicrystalline poly(ether ketone)s, although the presence of excess potassium fluoride in the reaction mixture can lead to degradation reactions. The use of a phase transfer catalyst can allow the use of water-soluble radical initiators, such as potassium peroxomonosulfate used to promote the free-radical polymerization of acrylonitrile [24],... 

The oxidation of organic compounds by water-soluble inorganic oxidants is often made difficult not only by the insolubility of the organic substrate in water, but also by the susceptibility of many of the miscible non-aqueous solvents to oxidation. Solubilization of the ionic oxidant into solvents such as benzene, chloroform, dichloromethane or 1,2-dichlorobenzene, by phase-transfer catalysts obviates these problems, although it has been suggested that dichloromethane should not be used, as it is also susceptible to oxidation [1]. 

Generally, the yields of the diols are comparable with those obtained by the classical osmium tetroxide procedure, but are lower when the diol has a high degree of solubility in water. Under such circumstances, further oxidative cleavage occurs in the aqueous phase to produce the carboxylic acids [18]. The kinetics and mechanism of the oxidation of a,p-unsaturated carboxylic acids with permanganate in the presence of phase-transfer catalysts has been studied [25]. 

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