Synthetic reactions nucleophilic substitution

Section 8.1 Nucleophilic substitution is an important reaction type in synthetic organic chemistry because it is one of the main methods for functional group transfonnations. Exanples of synthetically useful nucleophilic substitutions were given in Table 8.1. It is a good idea to return to that table and review its entries now that the details of nucleophilic substitution have been covered. 

As a synthetic tool, nucleophilic substitution involving alkyl halides is one of the three or fouf most useful classes of organic reactions. Much of the importance of alcohols is due to their ready conversion into alkyl halides, with their good leaving groups. 

The most synthetically useful nucleophilic substitution reaction is the bimolecular Sn2 reaction, shown in the section 2.7.A. A unimolecular substitution (ionization followed by substitution) is less useful in synthesis in a general sense, but is often the best specific reaction to effect a particular functional group exchange. In Chapter 12 we will see many examples where cationic reactions are very useful. Unimolecular substitution also occurs as a side reaction in aqueous media and can influence both the yield, stereochemistry, and regiochemistry of the final product. 

The reaction of alkoxides with alkyl halides or sulfonates is a useful method for ether synthesis (entries 6-10). Disubstituted sulfides are prepared by reaction of alkyl thiolates with alkylating agents under typical Sn2 reaction conditions (entries 12 and 13). Many small anions can be introduced into organic molecules by nucleophilic substitution. Entries 15 and 16 illustrate the preparation of a nitroal-kane and an alkyl azide, respectively, by displacement reactions. The alkylation of tertiary amines to give quaternary ammonium salts is another example of a synthetically useful nucleophilic substitution process. 

An important method for construction of functionalized 3-alkyl substituents involves introduction of a nucleophilic carbon synthon by displacement of an a-substituent. This corresponds to formation of a benzylic bond but the ability of the indole ring to act as an electron donor strongly influences the reaction pattern. Under many conditions displacement takes place by an elimination-addition sequence[l]. Substituents that are normally poor leaving groups, e.g. alkoxy or dialkylamino, exhibit a convenient level of reactivity. Conversely, the 3-(halomethyl)indoles are too reactive to be synthetically useful unless stabilized by a ring EW substituent. 3-(Dimethylaminomethyl)indoles (gramine derivatives) prepared by Mannich reactions or the derived quaternary salts are often the preferred starting material for the nucleophilic substitution reactions. 

The large rate enhancements observed for bimolecular nucleophilic substitutions m polai aprotic solvents are used to advantage m synthetic applications An example can be seen m the preparation of alkyl cyanides (mtiiles) by the reaction of sodium cyanide with alkyl halides... 

All these reactions of octadecyl p toluenesulfonate have been reported in the chemical literature and all proceed in synthetically useful yield You should begin by identifying the nucleophile in each of the parts to this problem The nucleophile replaces the p toluenesulfonate leaving group in an Sn2 reaction In part (a) the nucleophile is acetate ion and the product of nucleophilic substitution IS octadecyl acetate... 

The Hell-Volhard-Zehnsky reaction is of synthetic value m that the a halogen can be displaced by nucleophilic substitution... 

This reaction is of synthetic value in that a halo acids are reactive sub strates m nucleophilic substitution reactions... 

Kinetic studies have shown that the enolate and phosphorus nucleophiles all react at about the same rate. This suggests that the only step directly involving the nucleophile (step 2 of the propagation sequence) occurs at essentially the diffusion-controlled rate so that there is little selectivity among the individual nucleophiles. The synthetic potential of the reaction lies in the fact that other substituents which activate the halide to substitution are not required in this reaction, in contrast to aromatic nucleophilic substitution which proceeds by an addition-elimination mechanism (see Seetion 10.5). 

Compound 40 has not yet been synthesized. However, there is a large body of synthetic data for nucleophilic substitution reactions with derivatives of 41 [synthesized from aliphatic and aromatic aldehydes, pyridine, and trimethylsilyl triflate (92S577)]. All of these experimental results reveal that the exclusive preference of pathway b is the most important feature of 41 (and also presumably of 40). 

As a result, we could open the door to a new frontier in indole chemistry. Various 1-hydroxyindoles (4a), l-hydroxytryptophans(la), 1-hydroxytryptamines (lb), and their derivatives have been given birth for the first time. As predicted, 1-hydroxytryptophan and 1-hydroxytryptamine derivatives are found to undergo previously unknown nucleophilic substitution reactions. In addition, we have been uncovering many interesting reactivities characteristic of 1-hydroxyindole structures. From the synthetic point of view, useful building blocks for indole alkaloids, hither to inaccessible by the well-known electrophilic reactions in indole chemistry, have now become readily available. Many biologically interesting compounds have been prepared as well. 

In Chapter 3, we saw that cryptands specifically solvate the alkali metal portion of salts like KF, KOAc, and so on. Synthetic advantage can be taken of this fact to allow anions to be freer, thus increasing the rates of nucleophilic substitutions and other reactions (see p. 455). 

Alkyl halides can be hydrolyzed to alcohols. Hydroxide ion is usually required, except that especially active substrates such as allylic or benzylic types can be hydrolyzed by water. Ordinary halides can also be hydrolyzed by water, if the solvent is HMPA or A-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone." In contrast to most nucleophilic substitutions at saturated carbons, this reaction can be performed on tertiary substrates without significant interference from elimination side reactions. Tertiary alkyl a-halocarbonyl compounds can be converted to the corresponding alcohol with silver oxide in aqueous acetonitrile." The reaction is not frequently used for synthetic purposes, because alkyl halides are usually obtained from alcohols. 

Almost no attention has been paid to diphosphine sulfides employed as chiral ligands for palladium-catalysed nucleophilic substitution reactions. In this context, enantiomerically pure diphosphine sulfides derived from 2,2 -biphosphole, which combined axial chirality and phosphorus chiralities, were synthesised, in 2008, by Gouygou et al. through a four-step synthetic sequence. Among various palladium catalytic systems derived from this type of ligands and evaluated for the test reaction, that depicted in Scheme 1.62... 

The mechanistic aspects of nucleophilic substitution reactions were treated in detail in Chapter 4 of Part A. That mechanistic understanding has contributed to the development of nucleophilic substitution reactions as important synthetic processes. Owing to its stereospecificity and avoidance of carbocation intermediates, the Sw2 mechanism is advantageous from a synthetic point of view. In this section we discuss... 

As noted in Section 11.2.2, nucleophilic substitution of aromatic halides lacking activating substituents is generally difficult. It has been known for a long time that the nucleophilic substitution of aromatic halides can be catalyzed by the presence of copper metal or copper salts.137 Synthetic procedures based on this observation are used to prepare aryl nitriles by reaction of aryl bromides with Cu(I)CN. The reactions are usually carried out at elevated temperature in DMF or a similar solvent. 

Aromatic nitro compounds undergo nucleophilic aromatic substitutions with various nucleophiles. In 1991 Terrier s book covered (1) SNAr reactions, mechanistic aspects (2) structure and reactivity of anionic o-complexes (3) synthetic aspects of intermolecular SNAr substitutions (4) intramolecular SNAr reactions (5) vicarious nucleophilic substitutions of hydrogen (VNS) (6) nucleophilic aromatic photo-substitutions and (7) radical nucleophilic aromatic substitutions. This chapter describes the recent development in synthetic application of SNAr and especially VNS. The environmentally friendly chemical processes are highly required in modem chemical industry. VNS reaction is an ideal process to introduce functional groups into aromatic rings because hydrogen can be substituted by nucleophiles without the need of metal catalysts. 

The most common synthetic utility of azoniaspiroalkanes is as precursors to nitrogen-containing cycloalkanes via nucleophilic substitution reactions (Equation 1). 

Although the Capdevielle reaction for one-pot conversion of aldehydes to nitriles is a very convenient and widely applicable synthetic procedure, 3-substituted furoxans appear to be susceptible to rearrangement when substitutions with amine nucleophiles are attempted, even under relatively mild conditions (Scheme 29) <1999JOC8748>. The formation of the final product 107 in this reaction was explained via phenyl abstraction by carbamoyl radical cation from the second molecule of intermediate product 106 < 1999JOC8748>. 

---