Sources of Alkynes

6 Preparation of Alkynes by Alkylation of Acetylene and Terminal Alkynes 348 

13 Addition of Halogens to Alkynes 358 Some Things That Can Be Made from 

The brightly colored poison dart frogs of Central and South America store toxic substances such as the acetylenic alkaloid histrionicotoxin within their bodies to deter attacks by other animals. 

Hydrocarbons that contain a carbon-carbon triple bond are called alkynes. Noncyclic alkynes have the molecular formula C H2 2. Acetylene (HC=CH) is the simplest alkyne. We call compounds that have their triple bond at the end of a carbon chain (RC CH) monosubstituted, or terminal, alkynes. Dis-ubstituted alkynes (RC CR ) have internal triple bonds. You will see in this chapter that a carbon-carbon triple bond is a functional group, reacting with many of the same reagents that react with the double bonds of alkenes. 

The most distinctive aspect of the chemistry of acetylene and terminal alkynes is their acidity. As a class, compounds of the type RC CH are the most acidic of all hydrocarbons. The structural reasons for this property, as well as the ways in which it is used to advantage in chemical synthesis, are important elements of this chapter. 

Calcium carbide is the calcium salt of the doubly uegative carbide iou (=C=C=). Carbide diauiou is strougly basic aud reacts with water to form acetyleue  

LPROBLEM 9.1 Use curved arrows to show how calcium carbide reacts with water to give acetylene. 

Beginning in the middle of the twentieth centnry, alternative methods of acetylene production became practical. One of these is based on the dehydrogenation of ethylene. 

The reaction is endothermic, and the equihbrium favors ethylene at low temperatures but shifts to favor acetylene above 1150°C. Indeed, at very high temperatures most hydrocarbons, even methane, are converted to acetylene. Acetylene has value not only by itself but is also the starting material from which higher alkynes are prepared. 

Natural products that contain carbon-carbon triple bonds are numerous. Two examples are tariric acid, from the seed fat of a Guatemalan plant, and cicutoxin, a poisonous substance isolated from water hemlock. 

Acetylene was first characterized by the French chemist R E. M. Berthelot in 1862 and did not command much attention until its large-scale preparation from calcium carbide in the last decade of the nineteenth century stimulated interest in industrial applications. In the first stage of that synthesis, limestone and coke, a material rich in elemental carbon obtained from coal, are heated in an electric furnace to form calcium carbide. 

Calcium carbide Water Calcium hydroxide Acetylene 

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As a source of alkyne, enyne 19 was used in this reaction to afford two inseparable regioisomers of vinylsilanes 20a and 20b in 54% yield in a ratio of 3 1 (Scheme 9). 

Although the reactions between alkynes or alkenes and metal clusters are the main source of alkyne-substituted complexes, there are other reagents which can produce similar products. Two such reagents are tetraphenylcyclopentadienone, which in the reaction with Ru3(CO)i2 produces Ru3(CO)10(PhCCPh) (167), and dimethyl-vinylarsine, which has been made to react with several carbonyl clusters [Eq. (8)] (168, 169). In the reaction of M3(CO)12 (M = Ru, Os) with a number of tertiary phosphines and aromatic alcohols, an oxidative addition takes place and benzyne-triosmium compounds are obtained (170-176). The fact that Os3(CO)uPEt3 can be converted into an alkyne compound (177) suggests that the conversion goes through substituted intermediates. Carbene derivatives of clusters have also... 

J-unsaturated ester is formed from a terminal alkyne by the reaction of alkyl formate and oxalate. The linear a, /J-unsaturated ester 5 is obtained from the terminal alkyne using dppb as a ligand by the reaction of alkyl formate under CO pressure. On the other hand, a branehed ester, t-butyl atropate (6), is obtained exclusively by the carbonylation of phenylacetylene in t-BuOH even by using dppb[10]. Reaction of alkynes and oxalate under CO pressure also gives linear a, /J-unsaturated esters 7 and dialkynes. The use of dppb is essen-tial[l 1]. Carbonylation of 1-octyne in the presence of oxalic acid or formic acid using PhiP-dppb (2 I) and Pd on carbon affords the branched q, /J-unsatu-rated acid 8 as the main product. Formic acid is regarded as a source of H and OH in the carboxylic acids[l2]. 

Stereoselective and chemoselective semihydrogenation of the internal alkyne 208 to the ew-alkene 210 is achieved by the Pd-catalyzed reaction of some hydride sources. Tetramethyldihydrosiloxane (TMDHS) (209) i.s used in the presence of AcOH[116]. (EtO)3SiH in aqueous THF is also effective for the reduction of alkynes to di-alkenes[l 17], Semihydrogenation to the d.v-alkene 211 is possible also with triethylammonium formate with Pd on carbon[118]. Good yields and high cis selectivity are obtained by catalysis with Pd2fdba)3-Bu3P[119],... 

The properties of organometallic compounds are much different from those of the other classes we have studied to this point Most important many organometallic com pounds are powerful sources of nucleophilic carbon something that makes them espe cially valuable to the synthetic organic chemist For example the preparation of alkynes by the reaction of sodium acetylide with alkyl halides (Section 9 6) depends on the presence of a negatively charged nucleophilic carbon m acetylide ion... 

These compounds are sources of the nucleophilic anion RC=C and their reaction with primary alkyl halides provides an effective synthesis of alkynes (Section 9 6) The nucleophilicity of acetylide anions is also evident m their reactions with aldehydes and ketones which are entirely analogous to those of Grignard and organolithium reagents... 

The direct combination of selenium and acetylene provides the most convenient source of selenophene (76JHC1319). Lesser amounts of many other compounds are formed concurrently and include 2- and 3-alkylselenophenes, benzo[6]selenophene and isomeric selenoloselenophenes (76CS(10)159). The commercial availability of thiophene makes comparable reactions of little interest for the obtention of the parent heterocycle in the laboratory. However, the reaction of substituted acetylenes with morpholinyl disulfide is of some synthetic value. The process, which appears to entail the initial formation of thionitroxyl radicals, converts phenylacetylene into a 3 1 mixture of 2,4- and 2,5-diphenylthiophene, methyl propiolate into dimethyl thiophene-2,5-dicarboxylate, and ethyl phenylpropiolate into diethyl 3,4-diphenylthiophene-2,5-dicarboxylate (Scheme 83a) (77TL3413). Dimethyl thiophene-2,4-dicarboxylate is obtained from methyl propiolate by treatment with dimethyl sulfoxide and thionyl chloride (Scheme 83b) (66CB1558). The rhodium carbonyl catalyzed carbonylation of alkynes in alcohols provides 5-alkoxy-2(5//)-furanones (Scheme 83c) (81CL993). The inclusion of ethylene provides 5-ethyl-2(5//)-furanones instead (82NKK242). The nickel acetate catalyzed addition of r-butyl isocyanide to alkynes provides access to 2-aminopyrroles (Scheme 83d) (70S593). 

The reaction of an alkyne 1 and an alkene 2 in the presence of dicobaltoctacar-bonyl to yield a cyclopentenone 3 is referred to as the Pauson-Khand reaction Formally it is a [2 + 2 + 1 ]-cycloaddition reaction. The dicobaltoctacarbonyl acts as coordinating agent as well as a source of carbon monoxide. 

Previous syntheses of terminal alkynes from aldehydes employed Wittig methodology with phosphonium ylides and phosphonates. 6 7 The DuPont procedure circumvents the use of phosphorus compounds by using lithiated dichloromethane as the source of the terminal carbon. The intermediate lithioalkyne 4 can be quenched with water to provide the terminal alkyne or with various electrophiles, as in the present case, to yield propargylic alcohols, alkynylsilanes, or internal alkynes. Enantioenriched terminal alkynylcarbinols can also be prepared from allylic alcohols by Sharpless epoxidation and subsequent basic elimination of the derived chloro- or bromomethyl epoxide (eq 5). A related method entails Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation of an allylic chloride and base treatment of the acetonide derivative.8 In these approaches the product and starting material contain the same number of carbons. 

An X-ray structure analysis of 74 (R=C4Hg) revealed that the unsaturated portion of the molecule was planar, with the angles between adjacent acetylenic bonds deviating by 13 -15° from 180°, the value for a strain-free molecule. Since the connection of the alkyne moieties to the aromatic rings was only shifted slightly (2-3°), distortion of the acetylene linkages appears as the major source of instability in these macrocycles. 

Wilkinson s catalyst brings about the hydrosilylation of a range of terminal alkenes (1-octene, trimethylvinylsilane) by 2-dimethylsilylpyridine with good regioselectivity for the anti-Markovnikoff product. Both 3-dimethylsilylpyridine and dimethylphenylsilane are less reactive sources of Si-H. In contrast, these two substrates are far more reactive than 2-dimethylsilylpyridine for the hydrosilylation of alkynes by [Pt(CH2 = CHSiMe2)20]/PR3 (R = Ph, Bu ). This difference was explained to be due to the operation of the two different pathways for Si-H addition—the standard Chalk-Harrod pathway with platinum and the modified Chalk-Harrod pathway with rhodium.108... 

In combination with the use of tetrasulfur tetranitride, trithiazyl trichloride, or any equivalent source of N-S-N , the technique of functionalizing a two-carbon source such as active methylene, alkene, or alkyne into thiadiazole (see Section 5.09.9.1.4) followed by reduction (see Section 5.09.5.6) provides a rapid route to 1,2-diamines. 

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