Substitutions Friedel-Crafts alkylation

The selectivity of an electrophile, measured by the extent to which it discriminated either between benzene and toluene, or between the meta- and ara-positions in toluene, was considered to be related to its reactivity. Thus, powerful electrophiles, of which the species operating in Friedel-Crafts alkylation reactions were considered to be examples, would be less able to distinguish between compounds and positions than a weakly electrophilic reagent. The ultimate electrophilic species would be entirely insensitive to the differences between compounds and positions, and would bring about reaction in the statistical ratio of the various sites for substitution available to it. The idea has gained wide acceptance that the electrophiles operative in reactions which have low selectivity factors Sf) or reaction constants (p+), are intrinsically more reactive than the effective electrophiles in reactions which have higher values of these parameters. However, there are several aspects of this supposed relationship which merit discussion. 

Nitration in sulphuric acid is a reaction for which the nature and concentrations of the electrophile, the nitronium ion, are well established. In these solutions compounds reacting one or two orders of magnitude faster than benzene do so at the rate of encounter of the aromatic molecules and the nitronium ion ( 2.5). If there were a connection between selectivity and reactivity in electrophilic aromatic substitutions, then electrophiles such as those operating in mercuration and Friedel-Crafts alkylation should be subject to control by encounter at a lower threshold of substrate reactivity than in nitration this does not appear to occur. 

Other typical electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions—nitration (second entry) sul fonation (fourth entry) and Friedel-Crafts alkylation and acylation (fifth and sixth entnes)—take place readily and are synthetically useful Phenols also undergo elec trophilic substitution reactions that are limited to only the most active aromatic com pounds these include mtrosation (third entry) and coupling with diazomum salts (sev enth entry)... 

Friedel-Crafts alkylation (Section 12 6) An electrophilic aro matic substitution in which an aromatic compound reacts with an alkyl halide in the presence of aluminum chloride An alkyl group becomes bonded to the nng... 

The alkylation of pyridine [110-86-1] takes place through nucleophiUc or homolytic substitution because the TT-electron-deficient pyridine nucleus does not allow electrophiUc substitution, eg, Friedel-Crafts alkylation. NucleophiUc substitution, which occurs with alkah or alkaline metal compounds, and free-radical processes are not attractive for commercial appHcations. Commercially, catalytic alkylation processes via homolytic substitution of pyridine rings are important. The catalysts effective for this reaction include boron phosphate, alumina, siHca—alurnina, and Raney nickel (122). 

Steric effects play a major role in determining the ortho para ratio in Friedel-Crafts alkylations. The amount of ortho substitution of toluene decreases as the size of the entering alkyl group increases along the series methyl, ethyl, /-propyl. No ortho product is found when the entering group is /-butyl. ... 

Of the many methods which have been published so far for the substitution of existing crowns, probably the most straightforward are Friedel-Crafts alkylation or acylation reactions. Cygan, Biernat and Chadzynski have reported the successful di-t-butylation of dibenzo-24-crown-8 using t-butanol as alkylating agent s . The crown was heated at 100° for 4 h in the presence of excess t-butanol and 85% phosphoric acid. The product was obtained as a crystalline (mp 52—74°) solid in 93% yield. The alkylated crowns are presumably a mixture of isomers substituted once in each ring as illustrated in Eq. (3.14). 

Blasius and coworkers have offered a somewhat different approach to systems of this general type. In the first of these, shown in Eq. (6.20), he utilizes a hydroxymethyl-substituted 15-crown-5 residue as the nucleophile. This essentially similar to the Mon-tanari method. The second approach is a variant also, but more different in the sense that covalent bond formation is effected by a Friedel-Crafts alkylation. In the reaction... 

The synthesis of an alkylated aromatic compound 3 by reaction of an aromatic substrate 1 with an alkyl halide 2, catalyzed by a Lewis acid, is called the Friedel-Crafts alkylation This method is closely related to the Friedel-Crafts acylation. Instead of the alkyl halide, an alcohol or alkene can be used as reactant for the aromatic substrate under Friedel-Crafts conditions. The general principle is the intermediate formation of a carbenium ion species, which is capable of reacting as the electrophile in an electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction. 

Friedel-Crafts alkylation of 8-hydroxycarbostyrils, such as leads to substitution at the C-5 position, namely, In this case an a-haloacyl reagent is employed. Displacement with isopropylamine and careful sodium borohydride reduction (care is... 

Ualike the multiple substitutions that often occur in Friedel-Crafts alkylations, acylations never occur more than once on a ring because the product acyl-benzene is less reactive than the nonacylated starting material. We ll account for this reactivity difference in the next section. 

What is an immediate precursor of j i-chloropropylbenzene " Because the two substituents have a meta relationship, the first substituent placed on the ring must be a meta director so that the second substitution will take place at the proper position. Furthermore, because primary alkyl groups such as propyl can t be introduced directly by Friedel-Crafts alkylation, the precursor of... 

Mohanty et al. were the first to introduce pendent r-butyl groups in die polymer backbones. The resulting material was quite soluble in aprotic dipolar solvents.83 The PEEK precursors were prepared under a mild reaction condition at 170°C. The polymer precursor can be converted to PEEK in die presence of Lewis acid catalyst A1C13 via a retro Friedel-Crafts alkylation. Approximately 50% of die rerr-butyl substitutes were removed due to die insolubility of the product in die solvent used. Later, Risse et al. showed diat complete cleavage of f< rf-butyl substitutes could be achieved using a strong Lewis acid CF3SO3H as both die catalyst and the reaction medium (Scheme 6.15).84... 

Furthermore, Jana et al. developed a FeCl3-catalyzed C3-selective Friedel-Crafts alkylation of indoles, using allylic, benzylic, and propargylic alcohols in nitromethane as solvent at room temperature. This method can also be used for the alkylation of pyrrole (Scheme 4). The reactions were complete within 2-3 h without the need of an inert gas atmosphere leading to the C-3-substitution product exclusively in moderate to good yields [20]. 

Typically, the reaction mechanism proceeds as follows [6], By photoreaction, two chlorine radicals are formed. These radicals react with the alkyl aromatic to yield a corresponding benzyl radical. This radical, in turn, breaks off the chlorine moiety to yield a new chlorine radical and is substituted by the other chlorine, giving the final product. Too many chlorine radicals lead to recombination or undesired secondary reactions. Furthermore, metallic impurities in micro reactors can act as Lewis catalysts, promoting ring substitution. Friedel-Crafts catalyst such as FeClj may induce the formation of resin-Uke products. 

Friedel-Crafts alkylations are among the most important reactions in organic synthesis. Solid acid catalysts have advantages in ease of product recovery, reduced waste streams, and reduction in corrosion and toxicity. In the past, people have used (pillared) clays (18), heteropolyacids (19) and zeohtes (20) for Friedel-Craft alkylations, with mixed success. Problems included poor catalyst stabihty and low activity. Benzylation of benzene using benzyl chloride is interesting for the preparation of substitutes of polychlorobenzene in the apphcation of dielectrics. The performance of Si-TUD-1 with different heteroatoms (Fe, Ga, Sn and Ti) was evaluated, and different levels of Fe inside Si-TUD-1 (denoted Fei, Fe2, Fes and Feio) were evaluated (21). The synthesis procedure of these materials was described in detail elsewhere (22). 

The Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction does not proceed successfully with aromatic reactants having EWG substituents. Another limitation is that each alkyl group that is introduced increases the reactivity of the ring toward further substitution, so polyalkylation can be a problem. Polyalkylation can be minimized by using the aromatic... 

The same group [38] also developed a double Heck reaction which was then terminated by a Friedel-Crafts alkylation to give 6/1-54 from 6/1-53 (Scheme 6/1.12) this involved an attack of an alkylpalladium(II) intermediate on an aryl or heteroaryl moiety. Noteworthy is the finding that the formal Friedel-Crafts alkylation occurs on both electron-rich and electron-poor heteroaromatic rings, as well as on substituted phenyl rings. Single Heck/Friedel-Crafts alkylation combinations have also been performed. 

Other electrophilic substitution reactions on aromatic and heteroaromatic systems are summarized in Scheme 6.143. Friedel-Crafts alkylation of N,N-dimethyl-aniline with squaric acid dichloride was accomplished by heating the two components in dichloromethane at 120 °C in the absence of a Lewis acid catalyst to provide a 23% yield of the 2-aryl-l-chlorocydobut-l-ene-3,4-dione product (Scheme 6.143 a) [281]. Hydrolysis of the monochloride provided a 2-aryl-l-hydroxycyclobut-l-ene-3,4-dione, an inhibitor of protein tyrosine phosphatases [281], Formylation of 4-chloro-3-nitrophenol with hexamethylenetetramine and trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) at 115 °C for 5 h furnished the corresponding benzaldehyde in 43% yield, which was further manipulated into a benzofuran derivative (Scheme 6.143b) [282]. 4-Chloro-5-bromo-pyrazolopyrimidine is an important intermediate in the synthesis of pyrazolopyrimi-dine derivatives showing activity against multiple kinase subfamilies (see also Scheme 6.20) and can be rapidly prepared from 4-chloropyrazolopyrimidine and N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) by microwave irradiation in acetonitrile (Scheme... 

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