Strained cycloalkenes

Saunier, R. Danion-Bougot, D. Damon, and R. Carrie, Nouv. J. Chim. 3,47 (1979). 

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Two illustrations that show the power of this reaction for the preparation of strained cycloalkenes are the contractions of 102 to the propellane 103 , an application that has been reviewed , and of 104 to the bicyclo[2.1.1]hexene 105 . The utility of the Ramberg-Backlund rearrangement in the preparation of various natural products such as steroids , terpenoids and pheromones has been demonstrated. In addition to the synthetic applications mentioned in the previous subsection, several selected examples taken from the recent literature are given in equations 66-69. These examples further demonstrate the potential of this method for alkene synthesis in general. 

The inhibitory effects of polar functional groups are not nearly as pronounced when the substituent is attached to a strained cycloalkene, where the release of ring strain provides a significant driving force for its metathesis. The norbornene ring system polymerizes easily by ring opening thus, numerous functionalized polymers have been prepared by the sequence depicted in Eq. (61). Many of these polymers hold some potential for commercialization and hence the bulk of this work is reported in the patent literature. 

The optimum catalyst for a given reaction depends primarily on (a) the energetics of the reaction and (b) the functional groups present in the substrate. If, for instance, a strained cycloalkene such as norbomene or cyclobutene is to be polymerized, a catalyst of low activity will be sufficient to attain acceptable reaction rates. RCM... 

One special case of cross metathesis is ring-opening cross metathesis. When strained, cyclic alkenes (but not cyclopropenes [818]) are treated with a catalytically active carbene complex in the presence of an alkene, no ROMP but only the formation of monomeric cross-metathesis product is observed [818,937], The reaction, which works best with terminal alkenes, must be interrupted when the strained cycloalkene is consumed, to avoid further equilibration. As illustrated by the examples in Table 3.22, high yields and regioselectivities can be achieved with this interesting methodology. 

As expected, the metathesis polymerization of more strained cycloalkenes, such as cyclobutene, occurs more rapidly than less strained structures such as cyclopentene. 

ROMP is generally an irreversible process, and relief of ring strain is the driving force for the forward reaction. Reversibility (with the formation of macrocyclic oligomers) is possible for less strained cycloalkenes like cyclooctene when the lifetimes for propagating chains are high. 

The reaction can be also applied to azoles (e.g., imidazoles, pyrazoles, triazoles, tetrazole) as the N -nucleophile for the hydroaminations of cyclic olefins. In this case, the presence of methyl benzoate sensitizes the photoisomerization of the double bond to form a highly strained ( )-cycloalkene. Protonation of this intermediate by triflic acid (TfOH, 20mol%) and addition of the azole nucleophile completes the reaction sequence [41]. As an example, the expeditious synthesis of l-(l-methylcy-clohexyl)- H-imidazole (27) in 72% yield is shown in Scheme 3.17 [41]. 

The intrinsic reactivity of strained cycloalkenes such as norbornene and cyclobutene ensures that they react as desired, and simple homogeneous metal halide catalysts are often effective for this transformation. However for less strained cyclic substrates, manipulation of catalyst activity/selectivity by means of modifying ligands is required. This is where the well-defined alkylidene catalysts pioneered by Grubbs and Schrock have come to the fore. An interesting example illustrating the range of catalyst reactivity is provided by the... 

The mechanism of ADMET polymerization (Scheme 5) contains intermediates similar to those found in ROMP chemistry in that both polymerizations contain, inclusively, various metallacyclobutane/carbene species." Although ROMP propagates exclusively via trisubstituted metallacycles, whereas ADMET requires disubstituted metallacycles, the major difference is that ADMET step chemistry is an equilibrium process driven by condensation and ROMP chain chemistry propagates irreversibly owing to the high reactivity of the carbene with strained cycloalkenes. Therefore ROMP is much faster than ADMET simply because competing equihbria, absent during ROMP, decrease the net productive rate in ADMET chemistry. 

The [2 -I- 2] cycloaddition of an alkene and an alkyne is a valuable route leading to cyclobutene derivatives. The ruthenium(0)-catalyzed [2 -1- 2] cycloaddition of a strained cycloalkene, norbornene 40, vith highly electron-deficient DMAD afforded the cyclobutene 74 (Scheme 4.28) [62]. As expected, the reaction took place at the exo face of 40 via the ruthenacyclopentene intermediate 75, that ivas formed by the oxidative cyclization of DMAD and norbornene. In addition to the parent 40, various norbornene derivatives can also be used as alkene components. When the Ru" precatalyst 17 ivas employed, electronically neutral alkynes participated in the [2 -1- 2] cycloaddition with norbornene and its derivatives [63]. A similar [2 -1- 2] cycloaddi-... 

The reaction is extremely useful for preparing strained cycloalkenes, particularly cyclobutenes. The success of such reactions stems from the fact that they are not ring forming, but involve contraction of a less-strained saturated ring. 

Vinylsulfenes (115), generated by thermolysis of thiete-1,1-dioxides (116), react with the strained cycloalkene norbornene (117) to give [4 + 2] cycloadducts (118) (Scheme 74). 

In a laser flash-photolysis study, 2-phenyladamantene was generated in benzene at room temperature from 3-noradamantyl(phenyl)diazomethane. This strained cycloalkene decays with second-order kinetics to give a dimer, and reacts much faster with O2 and Bu3SnH than with methanol, thus revealing a substantial radical character. Diphenyldiazomethanes possessing stable /er -butylaminoxyl and Ullman s nitronyl nitroxide radicals, e.g. (25), have been prepared by photolysis of the parent diazomethanes. Analysis of ESR fine structures showed that the carbene and radical centres couple ferromagnetically in these molecules, as expected. 

It is well known that the reactivity of ring-strained cycloalkenes with various 1,3-dipoles is higher than that of simple unstrained cycloalkenes (for CH2N2 ... 

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