Styrenes nucleophiles

The phenylation of styrene with phenyl Grignard reagents as a hard carbon nucleophile proceeds in 75% yield in the presence of PdCl2, LiCl, and K2CO3 at room temperature to give stilbene (207). Selection of the solvent is crucial and the best results are obtained in MeCN. The reaction can be made catalytic by the use of CuCl2[197]. Methyllithium reacts with styrene in the presence of Pd(acac)2 or Pd(OAc)2 to give /3-methylstyrene (208) in 90% yield[198]. 

The ionic hydrazides are extremely sensitive and explode on contact with ak or upon heating. The alkaline-earth hydrazides, which have the general formula M(N2H2), appear to be less sensitive (15). Hydrazides such as aluminum hydrazide [25546-96-7] Al(N2H2)3, have also been made (16). The hydrazide anion is more nucleophilic than hydrazine and undergoes reactions not possible using hydrazine itself (17). Thus, styrene in ethyl ether solution at 0°C is... 

Bartoli recently discovered that by switching from azide to p-anisidine as nucleophile, the ARO of racemic trans- 3-substituted styrene oxides could be catalyzed by the (salen)Cr-Cl complex 2 with complete regioselectivity and moderate selectivity factors (Scheme 7.36) [14]. The ability to access anti-P-amino alcohols nicely complements the existing methods for the preparation of syn-aryl isoserines and related compounds [67] by asymmetric oxidation of trans-cinnamate derivatives [68]. 

The traditional means of assessment of the sensitivity of radical reactions to polar factors and establishing the electrophilicity or nucleophilieity of radicals is by way of a Hammett op correlation. Thus, the reactions of radicals with substituted styrene derivatives have been examined to demonstrate that simple alkyl radicals have nucleophilic character38,39 while haloalkyl radicals40 and oxygcn-ccntcrcd radicals " have electrophilic character (Tabic 1.4). It is anticipated that electron-withdrawing substituents (e.g. Cl, F, C02R, CN) will enhance overall reactivity towards nucleophilic radicals and reduce reactivity towards electrophilic radicals. Electron-donating substituents (alkyl) will have the opposite effect. 

In the presence of aqueous sodium hydroxide, 2-phenylthiirane dioxide gives styrene and the sulfinate 119. These results have been interpreted111 in terms of initial nucleophilic attack of hydroxide ion at the carbon atom in the 3-position of the three-membered ring in addition to sulfur dioxide elimination (see equation 48). 

Carbanionic sites exhibiting high nucleophilicity (such as those of styrene or dienes) can react with a number of electrophiles such as ... 

Analogous results were obtained for enol ether bromination. The reaction of ring-substituted a-methoxy-styrenes (ref. 12) and ethoxyvinylethers (ref. 10), for example, leads to solvent-incorporated products in which only methanol attacks the carbon atom bearing the ether substituent. A nice application of these high regio-and chemoselectivities is found in the synthesis of optically active 2-alkylalkanoic acids (ref. 13). The key step of this asymmetric synthesis is the regioselective and chemoselective bromination of the enol ether 4 in which the chiral inductor is tartaric acid, one of the alcohol functions of which acts as an internal nucleophile (eqn. 2). 

It has been shown (ref. 21) that a solvent which is both protic and nucleophilic, assists the formation of the bromination intermediates of moderately reactive olefins as styrenes in two ways, (Scheme 7). Firstly, the solvent initiates bromide ion formation electrophilically and, secondly, favours... 

The differences in the steric effect between catecholborane and pinacolborane, and the valence effect between a cationic or neutral rhodium complex reverse the re-gioselechvity for fluoroalkenes (Scheme 1-4) [26]. The reaction affords one of two possible isomers with excellent regioselectivity by selecting borane and the catalyst appropriately, whereas the uncatalyzed reaction of 9-BBN or SiaiBH failed to yield the hydroboration products because of the low nucleophilicity of fluoroalkenes. The regiochemical preference is consistent with the selectivity that is observed in the hydroboration of styrene. Thus, the internal products are selectively obtained when using a cationic rhodium and small catecholborane while bulky pinacolborane yields terminal products in the presence of a neutral rhodium catalyst. 

Nucleophilic solvents can compete with halide ion for the cationic intermediate. For example, the bromination of styrene in acetic acid leads to significant amounts of the acetoxybromo derivative. 

Better yields result from more nucleophilic styrene dienophiles. For example, method F proves successful with the benzaldehyde 5 and a-methoxystyrene to afford the benzopyran 52 in a 55% yield (Fig. 4.28).27 The preferred diastereomer reflects an endo orientation with the more reactive moiety, which in this case is the vinyl ether portion of the dienophile. However, the diastereoselectivity for this and other 1,1-substituted alkenes is less than that for the corresponding mono-substituted systems. 

In view of these results the experiments using styrene were repeated at lower temperatures and the study extended to the more nucleophilic analogs, a-methyl styrene, tetraphenylethylene. No significant shifts of benzyl proton peaks were observed in any of these cases, even with a 500-Hz scale expansion. 

Block copolymers comprised of PS and polymethacrylate blocks with aliphatic stearyl or decyl side groups were prepared by the sequential addition of monomers, as shown in Scheme 1. Styrene was polymerized in THF at - 78 °C using s-BuLi as the initiator [11,12]. The nucleophilicity of the living polystyryllithium was reduced by reaction with DPE (in order to avoid reactions with the carbonyl groups), followed by the polymerization of the methacrylate monomer. Stearyl methacrylate, SMA is associated with... 

Diazomethane is also decomposed by N O)40 -43 and Pd(0) complexes43 . Electron-poor alkenes such as methyl acrylate are cyclopropanated efficiently with Ni(0) catalysts, whereas with Pd(0) yields were much lower (Scheme 1)43). Cyclopropanes derived from styrene, cyclohexene or 1-hexene were formed only in trace yields. In the uncatalyzed reaction between diazomethane and methyl acrylate, methyl 2-pyrazoline-3-carboxylate and methyl crotonate are formed competitively, but the yield of the latter can be largely reduced by adding an appropriate amount of catalyst. It has been verified that cyclopropane formation does not result from metal-catalyzed ring contraction of the 2-pyrazoline, Instead, a nickel(0)-carbene complex is assumed to be involved in the direct cyclopropanation of the olefin. The preference of such an intermediate for an electron-poor alkene is in agreement with the view that nickel carbenoids are nucleophilic 44). 

An even simpler protocol for performing nucleophilic substitutions (aminations) and Suzuki reactions in one pot was reported by the Organ group for the generation of a 42-member library of styrene-based nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) antagonists (Scheme 6.21) [49]. After considerable experimentation, the authors found that simultaneous nucleophilic displacement and Suzuki coupling could be carried out very effectively by charging the microwave process vessel with the palladium catalyst (0.5 mol% palladium-on-charcoal), the boronic acid [R1B(OH)2], the... 

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