Sulfonyl groups, substitution nucleophilic

An advantage that sulfonate esters have over alkyl halides is that their prepara tion from alcohols does not involve any of the bonds to carbon The alcohol oxygen becomes the oxygen that connects the alkyl group to the sulfonyl group Thus the configuration of a sulfonate ester is exactly the same as that of the alcohol from which It was prepared If we wish to study the stereochemistry of nucleophilic substitution m an optically active substrate for example we know that a tosylate ester will have the same configuration and the same optical purity as the alcohol from which it was prepared... 

Sulfinyl and sulfonyl groups would be expected to activate the benzene ring towards nucleophilic substitution, as CN and N02 do, and an already-mentioned example of this (Section I.D) was discovered nearly half a century ago46. 

Pathway A shows the most common reaction where the nucleophilic substitution reaction occurs at the electron-deficient carbon atom due to the strong electron-attracting character of the sulfonyl group. Nucleophilic displacements at the allylic position (SN2 reaction) are shown in pathway B. Pathway C is the formation of a-sulfonyl carbanion by nucleophilic attack on the carbon atom p to the sulfone moiety. There are relatively few reports on substitution reactions where nucleophiles attack the sulfone functionality and displace a carbanion as illustrated in pathway D3. 

Besides radical additions to unsaturated C—C bonds (Section III.B.l) and sulfene reactions (see above), sulfonyl halides are able to furnish sulfones by nucleophilic substitution of halide by appropriate C-nucleophiles. Undesired radical reactions are suppressed by avoiding heat, irradiation, radical initiators, transition-element ion catalysis, and unsuitable halogens. However, a second type of undesired reaction can occur by transfer of halogen instead of sulfonyl groups (which becomes the main reaction, e.g. with sulfuryl chloride). Normally, both types of undesired side-reaction can be avoided by utilizing sulfonyl fluorides. 

It has also been known for many years that sulfonyl groups, like carbonyl groups, promote the addition of nucleophilic reagents to carbon- carbon double bonds . The meta-directing properties of the S02Me group in electrophilic aromatic substitution were discovered in the mid-1920s . ... 

A long series of studies of aromatic nucleophilic substitution included the kinetics of reactions of l-chloro-2,4-bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)benzene, 3-nitro-4-chlorophenyl trifluoromethyl sulfone and 2-chlorophenyl trifluoromethyl sulfone with sodium methox-ide or ammonia in methanol . The SO2CF3 group was found to have an enormous accelerating effect, in accord with the value of 1.65, based on the dissociation of anilinium ion. Further examples of the promotion of nucleophilic aromatic substitution by fluoro-substituted sulfonyl groups are given by Yagupol skii and coworkers . 

Reaction of 3,4-bis(phenylsulfonyl)-l,2,5-oxadiazole oxide isomers with ethanol and ethanethiol in basic medium gave the expected alkoxy- and alkylthio-substituted (benzenesulfonyl)furoxans, respectively <1996JHC327, 1997FES405>. Nucleophilic substitution of the sulfonyl group of 3,4-bis-(benzenesulfonyl)furoxan 222 in the presence of aqueous NaOH in tetrahydrofuran (THF) furnished the corresponding 3 -0-(3-benzenesulfonylfur-oxan-4-yl) derivative 223 in 79-92% yield (Equation 44) <2004JME1840>. 

We will defer consideration of the particular pattern of nucleophile reactivity observed until Section 9. There we will compare it with what is found for the same group of nucleophiles reacting with (a) an aryl rr-disulfone ArS02S02Ar, a substitution that involves the same leaving group as in (139) but which takes place at a sulfonyl ( S02) rather than a sulfinyl ( S=0) sulfur, and (b) an aryl thiolsulfonate, ArSSOzAr, a substitution where ArSO is displaced from a sulfenyl ( S) sulfur. 

The first evidence that an elimination-addition mechanism could be important in nucleophilic substitution reactions of alkanesulfonyl derivatives was provided by the observation (Truce et al., 1964 Truce and Campbell, 1966 King and Durst, 1964, 1965) that when alkanesulfonyl chlorides RCH2S02C1 were treated in the presence of an alcohol R OD with a tertiary amine (usually Et3N) the product was a sulfonate ester RCHDS020R with exactly one atom of deuterium on the carbon alpha to the sulfonyl group. Had the ester been formed by a base-catalysed direct substitution reaction of R OD with the sulfonyl chloride there would have been no deuterium at the er-position. Had the deuterium been incorporated by a separate exchange reaction, either of the sulfonyl chloride before its reaction to form the ester, or of the ester subsequent to its formation, then the amount of deuterium incorporated would not have been uniformly one atom of D per molecule. The observed results are only consistent with the elimination-addition mechanism involving a sulfene intermediate shown in (201). Subsequent kinetic studies... 

We discussed earlier (p. 135) that nucleophilic substitution at the sulfonyl group of the cyclic, five-membered sultone [55] occurs over 10J times faster than for an open chain aryl arenesulfonate and that this large rate acceleration... 

One of the nitro groups in furazan (78) can be substituted by chloride and azide, and displacement of sulfonyl groups has also been reported. Nucleophilic reactions in the homocyclic ring of benzofuroxans may be accompanied by deoxygenation of the A-oxide 4-nitrobenzofuroxan with dialkyl-amines affords 4-dialkylamino-7-nitrobenzofurazans as the major product. Substitution reactions... 

The proposed mechanism of this reaction is composed by an initial S v2-type nucleophilic substitution reaction of 113 with the nucleophilic a-sulfonyl lithium carbanion to give the alkylmagnesium species (114) having a sulfonyl group at the / -position. Then, a -elimination reaction of magnesium sulfinate from the intermediate (114) occurs... 

For further reactions including displacement of the sulfonyl group with a labelled fluorine atom, see refs 191-193. The next homolog, tetraethylammonium fluoride has been also used for nucleophilic substitution of sulfonates. 3 /f-(Tosyloxy)-5 a//-androstan-l 7-one (7) on refluxing with tetraethylammonium fluoride in acetone yields 3a-fluoro-5a//-androstan-l 7-one (8) in 78% yield.194... 

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