The Oxidation of Carbanions

The removal of an electron from a carbanion oxidizes it to a free radical and sometimes, in the presence of oxygen, to a peroxide. Organometallic compounds give many radical-like reactions of course, and a possible oxidation mechanism for such compounds is a preliminary dissociation into radicals followed by oxidation of the radicals and the metal. 

However, the indubitably ionic quaternary ammonium compounds LXXV and LXXVI also react with oxygen, although the products have not been investigated.408-409 

The highly colored and presumably highly ionic alkali salts of tris- 

The autoxidation of Grignard reagents can be diverted from its usual production of alcohols and be made to give hydroperoxides if the 

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The resultant radical (86) can, in turn, be reduced back to the carbanion by shaking with sodium amalgam. In suitable cases, e.g. (87), the oxidation of carbanions with one-electron oxidising agents, usually iodine, can be useful synthetically for forming a carbon-carbon bond, through dimerisation (— 88) of the resultant radical (89) ... 

The second electronic transfer to the oxygen produces the diradical (C) which evolves into monomer formation. The latter possibility (IV) is a homolytlc cleavage giving another anion radical. If the process follows scheme III or IV, we must obtain monomer formation after the oxidation reaction in all cases. We have carried out the oxidation of carbanionic dimers derived from isoprene, crmethylstyrene, styrene, 1,1-diphenylethylene. 

A useful oxidizing agent. Will convert organic sulfides to sulfoxides without overoxidation and disubstituted enamines to a-aminoketones. Most useful is the oxidation of carbanions to hydroxyl groups. 

This is a useful reaction for the formation of a carbon-carbon bond via dimerization of the radicals formed by the oxidation of carbanions. 

The most general methods for the syntheses of 1,2-difunctional molecules are based on the oxidation of carbon-carbon multiple bonds (p. 117) and the opening of oxiranes by hetero atoms (p. 123fl.). There exist, however, also a few useful reactions in which an a - and a d -synthon or two r -synthons are combined. The classical polar reaction is the addition of cyanide anion to carbonyl groups, which leads to a-hydroxynitriles (cyanohydrins). It is used, for example, in Strecker s synthesis of amino acids and in the homologization of monosaccharides. The ff-hydroxy group of a nitrile can be easily substituted by various nucleophiles, the nitrile can be solvolyzed or reduced. Therefore a large variety of terminal difunctional molecules with one additional carbon atom can be made. Equally versatile are a-methylsulfinyl ketones (H.G. Hauthal, 1971 T. Durst, 1979 O. DeLucchi, 1991), which are available from acid chlorides or esters and the dimsyl anion. Carbanions of these compounds can also be used for the synthesis of 1,4-dicarbonyl compounds (p. 65f.). 

Work in the mid-1970s demonstrated that the vitamin K-dependent step in prothrombin synthesis was the conversion of glutamyl residues to y-carboxyglutamyl residues. Subsequent studies more cleady defined the role of vitamin K in this conversion and have led to the current theory that the vitamin K-dependent carboxylation reaction is essentially a two-step process which first involves generation of a carbanion at the y-position of the glutamyl (Gla) residue. This event is coupled with the epoxidation of the reduced form of vitamin K and in a subsequent step, the carbanion is carboxylated (77—80). Studies have provided thermochemical confirmation for the mechanism of vitamin K and have shown the oxidation of vitamin KH2 (15) can produce a base of sufficient strength to deprotonate the y-position of the glutamate (81—83). 

This oxidative process has been successful with ketones,244 esters,245 and lactones.246 Hydrogen peroxide can also be used as the oxidant, in which case the alcohol is formed directly.247 The mechanisms for the oxidation of enolates by oxygen is a radical chain autoxidation in which the propagation step involves electron transfer from the carbanion to a hydroperoxy radical.248... 

One electron oxidation of monocarbanions leads to carbon radicals and two electron oxidation gives carbocations. In most of these oxidations, the mechanism is not known, though progress is being made on some mechanisms. But there appears to be a parallelism between base strength and ease of oxidation of carbanions. 

Flavin oxidation of carbanions has also been of much concern since active intermediates in some flavoenzyme-mediated reactions (amino acid oxidase, lactate oxidase, etc.) are carbanions (Kosman, 1977). Flavin oxidation of nitroethane carbanion (20), which had not been achieved in non-enzymatic systems, occurs with [56] bound to CTAB micelles (Shinkai etal., 1976b). This suggests that the nitroethane carbanion is also activated by the micellar environment. 

Radicals are generated at the anode by oxidation of carbanions (Scheme lb), for example, alkoxides and carboxylates (see Chapter 5, 6), and at the cathode by reduction of protonated carbonyl compounds or onium salts (Scheme Ic) (see Chapter 7). Thereby, a wide choice of different radical structures can be mildly and simply... 

The more acidic fluorene in tert-butyl alcohol solution, or in DMSO solution, reacts by a process that involves the carbanion in equilibrium with hydrocarbon. Thus, fluorene and 9,9-dideuteriofluorene oxidize at identical rates. We have established that the oxidation of the anion of fluorene can be catalyzed by a variety of electron acceptors (v), including various nitroaromatics (18). The catalyzed oxidation rates were found to follow the rates of electron transfer measured by ESR spectroscopy in the absence of oxygen. These results established the catalyzed reaction as a free radical chain process without shedding light upon the mechanism of the uncatalyzed reaction. 

The oxidation of benzhydrol and 9-fluorenol in basic solution again shows a difference in regard to mechanism that can be primarily attributed to a difference in acidity as carbon acids. In tert-butyl alcohol benzhydrol enters into an oxidation scheme as the mono (oxy) anion. The data strongly suggest a free radical chain. Under these conditions the more acidic fluorenol or xanthenol oxidizes via carbanions or dianions. These oxidations can be catalyzed to occur via a free radical chain process by one-electron acceptors, such as nitrobenzene, and a free radical chain process may well be involved in the absence of the catalyst. 

Received October 9, 1967. Work supported by a grant from the Petroleum Research Fund administered by the American Chemical Society. Part III in a series on Oxidation of Carbanions. Part II (21) was published in 1967. 

The oxidation of thiazolium ions 199 with 3-methyllumiflavine was studied kinetically in aqueous buffer solutions (80BCJ2340). The rate-determining step is carbanion formation, which is followed by rapid oxidation to 200. 

The last observation concerns the oxidation of the lsoprene carbanionic dimers.— We do not observe the monomer formation, but the presence of monoalcohols with a high yield. In "Inverse oxidation we obtain 52% of monoalcohol and 80% In "direct oxidation . These monoalcohols have been Isolated and characterized (Fig. 1). They come from the transfer reaction from the primary radical to the solvent. The high yield of monoalcohol shows that the hydrogen transfer from the solvent Is a competitive reaction towards functionalization. This fact Is confirmed by the similar values of the two rate constants ( 108 M-i.S-1) . . ... 

Backwall and coworkers have extensively studied the stereochemistry of nucleophilic additions on 7r-alkenic and ir-allylic palladium(II) complexes. They concluded that nucleophiles which preferentially undergo a trans external attack are hard bases such as amines, water, alcohols, acetate and stabilized carbanions such as /3-diketonates. In contrast, soft bases are nonstabilized carbanions such as methyl or phenyl groups and undergo a cis internal nucleophilic attack at the coordinated substrate.398,399 The pseudocyclic alkylperoxypalladation procedure occurring in the ketonization of terminal alkenes by [RCC PdOOBu1], complexes (see Section 61.3.2.2.2)42 belongs to internal cis addition processes, as well as the oxidation of complexed alkenes by coordinated nitro ligands (vide in/ra).396,397... 

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