Sulfur-stabilized anions

TABLE 4. Generation of sulfur-stabilized anion with organometaUic reagents... 

One hydrolytic method that is useful for the preparation of ketones is the hydrolysis of dithianes. 1.3-Dithiane can be alkylated by treatment with butyl lithium followed by an alkylating agent. The two sulfurs flanking the acetal carbon acidify the protons on that carbon such that butyl lithium can remove one giving a sulfur-stabilized anion. This anion reacts with alkyl halides or sulfonates to give alkylated products. This sequence can be repeated to give a bis-alkylated product. Hydrolysis then yields a ketone. Ditliioacetals are much more resistant to hydrolysis than acetals and thus Hg2+ is often used to promote efficient hydrolysis. 

The alkylation of sulfur-stabilized anions has been the subject of an excellent recent review633. Anions adjacent to a wide range of sulfur functionalities may be alkylated readily, the most common being sulfoxide and sulfone a-anions. In the synthesis of retinoic acid derivatives and vitamin A634-636, a-sulfonyl anions have been alkylated with an co-acetoxy-containing allyl halide in good yield (equation 96). 

With the 1,4-dimethoxynaphthalene ligand, cyano-stabilized anions (including cyanohydrin acetal anions) and ester enolates equilibrate even at low temperature and strongly favor addition at the a-position (C-5). The kinetic site of addition is also generally C-a. However, the 2-lithio-l,3-dithiane anion and phenyllithium do not equilibrate over the temperature range -78 to 0°C. The sulfur-stabilized anions favor addition at C-/3 (equation 119) 134,190 phenyllithium... 

The Julia-Kocienski olefination of heterocyclic sulfones and aldehydes, which is an alternative to the modified Julia olefination, forms alkenes with good -selectivity. First, sulfone 54 is deprotonated in the a-position to the sulfur by sodium hexamethyldisilazide (NaHMDS) and the sulfur-stabilized anion 55 then adds to the alde-... 

Review. Seebach and Corey have published a general paper on the preparation and metalation of 1,3-dithianes and examples of the reaction of 2-lithio-l,3-dithianes with electrophilic reagents (alkyl halides, carbonyl compounds, acids, and oxides). The value of these sulfur-stabilized anionic reagents is that they are equivalent to acyl anions (a), in which the normal polarity of the carbonyl group is reversed (reversible umpolung). 

The steric effect on regioselectivity shows clearly in the series in Eq. (31), Table 4. Comparing similar anion type, except for size, entries 1, 3, and 7 show that ortho substitution is very signiflcant with a primary carbanion but essentially absent with a tertiary cyano-stabilized anion. It is striking that as the size of the alkyl substituent on the arene increases, not only is ortho substitution disfavored, but meta is as well compare entries 3-6 and compare 7-9. With the very large CH(t-Bu)2 group (entry 9), only para substitution is observed. Regioselectivity is also dependent on the electronic nature of the nucleophile. Most remarkably, addition of the primary sulfur-stabilized anion shows nearly equal... 

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