Titanium compounds McMurry coupling

Dams, R., Malinowski, M., Geise, H. J. Reductive couplings with low-valent titanium compounds (McMurry reaction). An ESR investigation into the TiCl3/LiAIH4/ROH system. Transition Metal Chemistry (Dordrecht, Netherlands) 1982, 7, 37-40. 

Among the appHcations of lower valent titanium, the McMurry reaction, which involves the reductive coupling of carbonyl compounds to produce alkenes, is the most weU known. An excellent review of lower valent titanium reactions is available (195). Titanium(II)-based technology is less well known. A titanium(II)-based complex has been used to mediate a stetio- and regio-specific reduction of isolated conjugated triple bonds to the corresponding polyenes (196). 

Titanium compounds are used very frequently in organic synthesis, however, often stoichiometrically [8]. [Cp2TiCl]2 is the most frequently applied titanium reagent to mediate radical reactions (reviews [123, 124]). Radicals are also often invoked in McMurry couplings mediated by low-valent titanium species (reviews [125-127]) and in the related pinacol coupling (reviews [128-130]). 

A prototype example is the famous McMurry coupling of carbonyl compounds to alkenes (Scheme 1) [4]. The very high stability of the accumulating titanium oxides constitutes the thermodynamic sink which drives the conversion but demands the use of stoichiometric or excess amounts of the low-valent titanium reagent [Ti]. Only recently has it been possible to elaborate a procedure that for the first time enables us to perform intramolecular carbonyl coupling reactions catalyzed by titanium species [5]. 

In 1977, McMurry and Kees [152] developed a titanium-induced intramolecular coupling procedure to form cycloalkenes from dicarbonyl compounds. Mechanistically, as shown in Scheme 85, the coupling reaction proceeds by an initial pinacol dimerization of the dicarbonyl 253 to 254, followed by titanium-induced deoxygenation to afford alkene 255. 

Several other methods for the synthesis of PPVs have been described in the literature. The McMurry reaction, which consists of the deoxygenative coupling of aromatic dialdehydes in the presence of titanium compounds, has been employed to obtain 2,5-dihexyl-PPVs [69], para- and meta-FFV (20) [70], Scheme 11, the latter very unlikely to be prepared by the Wessling-Zinmerman or electrochemical routes, since there is no possibility of forming the required quinodimethane intermediate. Nevertheless, a drawback of this method is the somewhat tedious workup needed for the isolation of insoluble PPVs from the elementary metal powder (Ti and/or Zn), which is also produced. 

Alkenes may be generated via the intra- or intermolecular reductive coupling of carbonyl compounds in a titanium-mediated process known as the McMurry coupling. ... 

Reductive coupling of carbonyl compounds to yield olefins is achieved with titanium (0), which is freshly prepared by reduction of titanium(III) salts with LiAIH4 or with potassium. The removal of two carbonyl oxygen atoms is driven by T1O2 formation- Yields are often excellent even with sensitive or highly hindered olefins. (J.E. McMurry, 1974, 1976A,B). 

It is difficult to obtain cross-coupling products of two different carbonyl compounds by an intermolecular version of the McMurry reaction. Examples that use excess amounts of one carbonyl component are few. "" When one carbonyl component is replaced by a 1,1-dihalo compound or dithioacetal and the alternative is reduced with a low-valent metal such as low-valent titanium or chromium(ii), cross-coupling products, that is, Wittig-type olefins, are produced in high yields. Because the alternative approach is described elsewhere, we concentrate on only its important features here. 

For many years the elucidation of the mechanism of the McMurry reaction has been complicated by the fact that the most commonly used low-valent titanium was derived from hour-long pre-reducing DME-complexed TiCl3 with a zinc/copper couple (DME is 1,2-dimethoxyethane). Apparently, however, the zinc/copper couple reacts with TiCl3 only if the carbonyl compound is present, too. This fact has become part of the current mechanistic view of the McMurry reaction (Figure 17.58). At the same time, it became the starting point of the following variants of the McMurry reaction ... 

The reductive coupling of carbonyl compounds with formation of C-C double bonds was developed in the early seventies and is now known as McMurry reaction [38, 39]. The active metal in these reactions is titanium in a low-valent oxidation state. The reactive Ti species is usually generated from Ti(IV) or Ti(III) substrates by reduction with Zn, a Zn-Cu couple, or lithium aluminum hydride. A broad variety of dicarbonyl compounds can be cyclized by means of this reaction, unfunctionalized cycloalkenes can be synthesized from diketones, enolethers from ketone-ester substrates, enamines from ketone-amide substrates [40-42], Cycloalkanones can be synthesized from external keto esters (X = OR ) by subsequent hydrolysis of the primary formed enol ethers (Scheme 9). 

The most widely used systems are those employing low-valent titanium species. The reductive coupling of carbonyl compounds by titanium reagents was independently discovered in 1973 by Trylik and Mukaiyama, and has since been extensively developed by McMurry and his coworkers." " The McMurry reaction, as it has become known, has proved to be a valuable synthetic tool for the construction of C=C bonds. 

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