Stepwise nucleophilic substitution coupling

The description of the borderline between stepwise and concerted nucleophilic substitution remains murky in cases where there is no significant stabilization of the transition state for the concerted reaction through the coupling of bond cleavage and formation. The reason is that there are no simple experimental protocols to detect the point at which the energy well for the carbocation intermediate of the stepwise reaction in the upper right hand corner of Figure 2.3 is transformed into... 

Nucleophilic displacement of chlorine, in a stepwise manner, from cyanuric chloride leads to triazines with heteroatom substituents (see Section 6.12.5.2.4) in symmetrical or unsymmetrical substitution patterns. New reactions for introduction of carbon nucleophiles are useful for the preparation of unsymmetrical 2,4,6-trisubstituted 1,3,5-triazines. The reaction of silyl enol ethers with cyanuric chloride replaces only one of the chlorine atoms and the remaining chlorines can be subjected to further nucleophilic substitution, but the ketone produced from the silyl enol ether reaction may need protection or transformation first. Palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of 2-substituted 4,6-dichloro-l,3,5-triazine with phenylboronic acid gives 2,4-diaryl-6-substituted 1,3,5-triazines <93S33>. Cyanuric fluoride can be used in a similar manner to cyanuric chloride but has the added advantage of the reactions with aromatic amines, which react as carbon nucleophiles. New 2,4,6-trisubstituted 1,3,5-triazines are therefore available with aryl or heteroaryl and fluoro substituents (see Section 6.12.5.2.4). 

The key element of this protocol is the initial addition of cationic electrophiles such as rerr-alkyl or acyl cations to the double bond of a DCHC complex of the conjugated enyne 118, which results in the formation of the substituted propargylic cation intermediate 119, Subsequent reaction with pre-selected external nucleophiles, for example allylsilanes or silyl enol ethers, leads to the formation of the final adducts 120. The reaction is carried out as a one-pot, three-component coupling and can be used for the creation of two novel C-C bonds. It is a process somewhat complementary to the stepwise Michael addition described earlier (Scheme 2.31), with a reverse order of E and Nu addition. Oxidative decomplexation of 120 yields the product 121. The overall... 

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