Three-membered ring systems aziridines

The 1,3-dipolar reagent can in some cases be generated by the in situ opening of a suitable three-membered ring system. For example, aziridines can add to activated double bonds to give pyrrolidines, for example," ... 

The parent saturated three-membered ring systems containing nitrogen, or oxygen, or sulphur as the heteroatom are known as aziridine (1), oxirane (2) and thiirane (3). 

This review covers the chemical literature on epoxides and aziridines for the year 2007. As in previous years, this review is not comprehensive but rather covers a selection of synthetically useful and interesting reactions. Three-membered ring systems, epoxides and aziridines in particular, are excellent synthetic intermediates. This is largely due to their ability to be converted into other functional groups such as diols, diamines, and amino alcohols to name but a few. The chapter has been divided into two sections, one covering epoxides and the other covering aziridines. Each of these sections has been further divided into two additional sections, one on the synthesis of the heterocycle and one on the reactions of the heterocycle. There is some overlap between methods for the synthesis of epoxides and aziridines and any overlap has been noted in the text. 

Purpose. Tbe third intermediate on the pathway to the target photochromic imine is synthesized. A heterocyclic three-membered ring, an aziridine derivative, is formed. This is the first ring of the diazabicyclohexene system that you will ultimately convert into the photochromic imine. You will study a process that involves three reactions and the formation of two intermediates en route to the final product. You will study a number of interesting stereoselective reactions. You wfll work with organic reactions that require several days to come to completion. 

This chapter will deal exclusively with three-membered rings containing the hetero atoms O, S and N, and fused to the steroid skeleton. Because of the conformational requirements in steroids, not all of the usual methods of synthesis of three-membered rings are applicable to the fused ring system. For the synthesis of steroids to which an aziridine, oxirane or thiirane is attached either in the side chain or at a ring position but not directly fused to the nucleus, the methods discussed in this chapter, as well as others, are applicable. 

The same catalytic system has been tested for the hydroamination of 1,3-butadiene with cyclic amines from the three-membered ring aziridine to the seven-mem-bered ring perhydroazepine. Although arizidine does not lead to a hydroamination reaction, all other cyclic amines give rise to a mixture of 1 1 telomers in fair to excellent yields (e.g., Eq. 4.47) [181]. 

The fixation of C02 into a three-membered ring has also been promoted, under relatively severe conditions, by other catalytic systems such as tetrapheny-lantimony halides (333 K, 5 MPa) [68e] or the p-methoxyphenol/DMAP system (DMAP = 4,6-(dimethylamino)pyridine 393 K, 3.6MPa, 48h) [68f] or, under much milder conditions, by alkali [68g-k] or tetralkylammonium halides [68j], or by (Salen)Cr(III)(DMAP) [681]. It is worth noting that, with 2-alkyl or 2-aryl substituted aziridines, alkali or tetralkylammonium halides catalyze the formation of the 4-substituted regioisomer as the main or unique product, whereas the chromium(III) catalyst promoted the preferential conversion to the 5-subshtuted regioisomer with high selectivity and yield. 

A carbene or nitrene transfer reaction to a carbon-carbon or carbon-heteroatom double bond system leads to the formation of three-membered rings, such as a cyclopropane, an aziridine or an epoxide. These processes can be catalyzed by applying iron catalysts and the different cyclic systems are discussed here. 

Three membered rings are all strained and the parent systems may be endothermic (AH°f. cyclopropane 35 oxirane -78 aziridine 92 thiirane 52 kJ/mole). Some molecules with small distorted rings (of high strain energy) are explosively unstable. Individual entries are ... 

The aziridination of olefins, which forms a three-membered nitrogen heterocycle, is one important nitrene transfer reaction. Aziridination shows an advantage over the more classic olefin hydroamination reaction in some syntheses because the three-membered ring that is formed can be further modified. More recently, intramolecular amidation and intermolecular amination of C-H bonds into new C-N bonds has been developed with various metal catalysts. When compared with conventional substitution or nucleophilic addition routes, the direct formation of C-N bonds from C-H bonds reduces the number of synthetic steps and improves overall efficiency.2 After early work on iron, manganese, and copper,6 Muller, Dauban, Dodd, Du Bois, and others developed different dirhodium carboxylate catalyst systems that catalyze C-N bond formation starting from nitrene precursors,7 while Che studied a ruthenium porphyrin catalyst system extensively.8 The rhodium and ruthenium systems are... 

Formation of the oxazolo[3,4-Z ][l,2,4]triazine ring system (27) was first observed in the phototransformation of (140) with ketene which gave the product (141) (Equation (39)) <88CPB3354>. The proposed mechanism involves formation of the biradical (142), its cyclization to the fused aziridine (143), ring opening of the three-membered ring to give the zwitterion (144), which upon reaction with a further molecule of ketene affords the final product (141). 

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