Substitution Homolytic, Nucleophilic

Thus the overall picture of homolytic substitution of heteroaromatic compounds has undergone only minor modification as regards arylation, but very great modification as regards substitution with nucleophilic radicals, since Norman and Radda reviewed the field in these Advances. 

Electrophilic attack is considered to occur primarily at the site where the electron density is highest the contrary is true for nucleophilic substitutions. Homolytic displacements are not considered to be appreciably affected by the electron-density distribution. 

Radical cyclizations of nucleophilic N-alkyl radicals 96 onto the benzimidazole 2-position, mediated by tributyltin hydride and activated by quater-nizing the pyridine-like N-3 of imidazole with camphorsulfonic acid, have recently been reported (Scheme 20) [67]. These new five-, six- and seven-membered homolytic aromatic substitutions of nucleophilic N-alkyl radicals onto the benzimidazole-2-position occurred upon the use of large excesses of the azo-initiator, l,T-azobis(cyclohexanecarbonitrile), to supplement the non-chain reaction. The intermediate 97 aromatizes in high yields to the cy-clized benzimidazoles 98. 

In the preceding section we saw that nucleophilic substitutions on R-X reactants can, under some circumstances, occur via a radical chain mechanism. A much more common substitution pathway involves substitution of a hydrogen on an R-H reactant by a halogen. This involves conventional free radicals and a chain mechanism. The term given to these kinds of substitutions is Sh2 (substitution, homolytic, bimolecular). The most synthetically useful free radical substitution involves halogenation, and N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) is a common reagent (covered in the Connections highlight at the end of this section). 

A more modern approach for the direct introduction of a carbon side-chain into the pteridine nucleus has been developed by homolytic nucleophilic substitution reactions , especially using acyl radicals -i as well as alkyl radicals as reactive species. These reactions, however, take place regioselectively with 6,7-unsubstituted pteridine derivatives at the most electron-deficient 7-position leading to the unnatural isomers. Direction of the incoming nucleophile towards the C-6 atom can only be achieved in the presence of a 7-substituent " . A reasonable "protecting" group for C-7 has been the alkylmercapto and thione function, since it was found that the difficulties encountered with the Raney-nickel desulfurization reaction " in the pteridine series could be overcome using Raney-cobalt and copper-aluminum alloy, respectively . 

An interesting method for the substitution of a hydrogen atom in rr-electron deficient heterocycles was reported some years ago, in the possibility of homolytic aromatic displacement (74AHC(16)123). The nucleophilic character of radicals and the important role of polar factors in this type of substitution are the essentials for a successful reaction with six-membered nitrogen heterocycles in general. No paper has yet been published describing homolytic substitution reactions of pteridines with nucleophilic radicals such as alkyl, carbamoyl, a-oxyalkyl and a-A-alkyl radicals or with amino radical cations. 

The TT-electron density refers to the electron density at a given carbon atom obtained by summing the contributions from all the filled molecular orbitals. Electrophilic attack occurs where this density is highest, and nucleophilic attack where it is lowest tt-electron densities are not dominant in determining the orientation of homolytic substitution. 

The nucleophilic substitution reactions are still more limited in scope owing to the instability of the isoxazole ring toward nucleophilic reagents. Homolytic reactions appear to be unknown though some of the reactions being studied are possibly of this type. Besides those reactions which are characteristic of the reactivity of the isoxazole nucleus itself, we shall consider in this section some substitution reactions in the side chain organomagnesium synthesis in the isoxazole series, condensation reactions of the methyl groups of methyl-isoxazoles, and finally some miscellaneous reactions. 

Szele and Zollinger (1978 b) have found that homolytic dediazoniation is favored by an increase in the nucleophilicity of the solvent and by an increase in the elec-trophilicity of the P-nitrogen atom of the arenediazonium ion. In Table 8-2 are listed the products of dediazoniation in various solvents that have been investigated in detail. Products obtained from heterolytic and homolytic intermediates are denoted by C (cationic) and R (radical) respectively for three typical substituted benzenediazonium salts and the unsubstituted salt. A borderline case is dediazoniation in DMSO, where the 4-nitrobenzenediazonium ion follows a homolytic mechanism, but the benzenediazonium ion decomposes heterolytically, as shown by product analyses by Kuokkanen (1989) the homolytic process has an activation volume AF = + (6.4 0.4) xlO-3 m-1, whereas for the heterolytic reaction AF = +(10.4 0.4) x 10 3 m-1. Both values are similar to the corresponding activation volumes found earlier in methanol (Kuokkanen, 1984) and in water (Ishida et al., 1970). 

In Volume 13 reactions of aromatic compounds, excluding homolytic processes due to attack of atoms and radicals (treated in a later volume), are covered. The first chapter on electrophilic substitution (nitration, sulphonation, halogenation, hydrogen exchange, etc.) constitutes the bulk of the text, and in the other two chapters nucleophilic substitution and rearrangement reactions are considered. 

The aryl-thallium bond is thus apparently capable of displacement either by electrophilic or by suitable nucleophilic reagents. Coupled with its propensity for homolytic cleavage (spontaneous in the case of ArTlIj compounds, and otherwise photochemically induced), ArTlXj compounds should be capable of reacting with a wide variety of reagents under a wide variety of conditions. Since the position of initial aromatic thallation can be controlled to a remarkable degree, the above reactions may be only representative of a remarkably versatile route to aromatic substitution reactions in which organothallium compounds play a unique and indispensable role. 

The first paper of the frontier-electron theory pointed out that the electrophilic aromatic substitution in aromatic hydrocarbons should take place at the position of the greatest density of electrons in the highest occupied (HO) molecular orbital (MO). The second paper disclosed that the nucleophilic replacement should occur at the carbon atom where the lowest unoccupied (LU) MO exhibited the maximum density of extension. These particular MO s were called "frontier MO s . In homolytic replacements, both HO and LU.were shown to serve as the frontier MO s. In these papers the "partial" density of 2 pn electron, in the HO (or LU) MO, at a certain carbon atom was simply interpreted by the square of the atomic orbital (AO) coefficient in these particular MO s which were represented by a linear combination (LC) of 2 pn AO s in the frame of the Huckel approximation. These partial densities were named frontier-electron densities . 

Displacements such as this show all the usual characteristics of electrophilic aromatic substitution (substituent effects, etc., see below), but they are normally of much less preparative significance than the examples we have already considered. In face of all the foregoing discussion of polar intermediates it is pertinent to point out that homolytic aromatic substitution reactions, i.e. by radicals, are also known (p. 331) as too is attack by nucleophiles (p. 167). 

Attack on aromatic species can occur with radicals, as well as with the electrophiles (p. 131) and nucleophiles (p. 167) that we have already considered as with these polar species, homolytic aromatic substitution proceeds by an addition/elimination pathway ... 

So far as the overall substitution reaction (— 107) is concerned, marked differences from electrophilic and nucleophilic attack become apparent as soon as the behaviour of substituted benzene derivatives (C6HjY) is considered. Thus homolytic attack on C6H5Y is found to be faster than on C6H6, no matter whether Y is electron-attracting or -withdrawing, as shown by the relative rate data for attack by Ph ... 

Reactivity toward nucleophiles and comparison with other electrophilic centers 152 Paths for nucleophilic substitution of sulfonyl derivatives 156 Direct substitution at sulfonyl sulfur stereochemistry 157 Direct substitution at sulfonyl sulfur stepwise or concerted 158 The elimination-addition path for substitution of alkanesulfonyl derivatives 166 Homolytic decomposition of a-disulfones 172 10 Concluding remarks 173 Acknowledgement 174 References 174... 

The retrosynthesis involves the following transformations i) isomerisation of the endocyclic doble bond to the exo position ii) substitution of the terminal methylene group by a more stable carbonyl group (retro-Wittig reaction) iii) nucleophilic retro-Michael addition iv) reductive allylic rearrangement v) dealkylation of tertiary alcohol vi) homolytic cleavage and functionalisation vii) dehydroiodination viii) conversion of ethynyl ketone to carboxylic acid derivative ix) homolytic cleavage and functionalisation x) 3-bromo-debutylation xi) conversion of vinyl trimethylstannane to methyl 2-oxocyclopentanecarboxylate (67). 

Some chemical additives can induce ion-radical formation and direct the reaction along the ion-radical route. The effect was discovered and studied in cases of nucleophilic substitutions of cumene derivatives (Kornblum 1975, 1982). Cumyl radicals are formed at the first step of substitution irrespective of whether a dissociative or homolytic cleavage takes place as a result of electron transfer to the cumene derivatives (Zheng et al. 1999). 

A study of substituent effects in the homolytic acylation of 2- and 4-substituted quinolines with acetyl and benzoyl radicals has confirmed this character of the reaction. The benzoyl radical shows a higher nucleophilic character than the acetyl. This has been explained by the fact that the polar character originates in the contribution of the polar form (7) in the transition state. 

This awareness in a short time led to new homolytic aromatic substitutions, characterized by high selectivity and versatility. Further developments along these lines can be expected, especially as regards reactions of nucleophilic radicals with protonated heteroaromatic bases, owing to the intrinsic interest of these reactions and to the fact that classical direct ionic substitution (electrophilic and nucleophilic) has several limitations in this class of compound and does not always offer alternative synthetic solutions. Homolytic substitution in heterocyclic compounds can no longer be considered the Cinderella of substitution reactions. 

The synthesis of deoxysepiapterin (82) has been recently achieved by homo-lytic nucleophilic substitution of the pteridine nucleus by acyl radicals (505). Since this substitution arises preferentially at the most electron-deficient 7 position, protection at 7 position is necessary for nucleophilic attack at the 6 position. 2,4-Diamino-7-methylthiopteridine (597) and 2-amino-4- -pentyloxy-7-n-pro-pylthiopteridine (600), protected by the thio function, can be used as starting materials. Homolytic acylation of 597 with the system propionalde-hyde/Fe2+//ert-butylhydroperoxide afforded 6-propionylpteridine (598) in good yields, which could be transformed to deoxysepiapterin (82) by selective hydrolysis followed by deprotection of the thio function (Scheme 75). Deoxysepiapterin (82) can also be prepared by a similar procedure from 600. 

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