Trans-, photocycloadditions

Intermolecular photocycloadditions of alkenes can be carried out by photosensitization with mercury or directly with short-wavelength light.179 Relatively little preparative use has been made of this reaction for simple alkenes. Dienes can be photosensitized using benzophenone, butane-2,3-dione, and acetophenone.180 The photodimerization of derivatives of cinnamic acid was among the earliest photochemical reactions to be studied.181 Good yields of dimers are obtained when irradiation is carried out in the crystalline state. In solution, cis-trans isomerization is the dominant reaction. 

Cycloadditions are in general an effective way of constructing cyclobutane rings. A wide variety of heterocyclic systems dimerize in this way. 1,3-Diacetylindole, for example, affords the head-to-tail dimer 242 on irradiation in ethanol.185 Ethyl 2-ethoxy-l,2-dihydroquinoline-l-carboxy-late is similarly converted in diethyl ether into the trans head-to-head dimer.186 Notable among many analogous photodimerizations are those reported in 1,4-dihydropyridines,187 in furo[3,2-b]pyridin-2(4//)-ones,188 in 8-methyl-s-triazolo[4,3-a]pyridine,189 and in 2H-2-benzazepine-1,3-diones.190 The [ 2 + 2] dimerization of amidopyrine is the first reported example of a photocycloaddition in a 4-pyrazolin-3-one.191... 

High facial diastereoselectivity has been reported in the [2+2] photocycloaddition of aromatic aldehydes with a chiral enamide to give the ds-2,3-disubstituted oxetanes 11 and 12 with only minor amounts of the trans-oxetanes <99TL9003>. The same group of workers have investigated the photocycloaddition of m-substituted benzaldehydes to 3,4-dihydro-l.H-pyridin-2-ones to give mainly 13 <99JA10650>. 

Photocycloaddition of allene to cyclohexenone (341) gave the (3,y-enone (342), which reacted with vinyl magnesium bromide to produce the tertiary alcohol (343) in 79% yield. When the compound (343) was treated with KH and 18-crown-6 in THF at room temperature for two hours and quenched with aq. NH4C1, the cyclobutene (344) was obtained. The thermal ring opening of the cyclobutene (344) proceeded in toluene in a sealed-tube at 180 °C for twelve hours to give a readily separable 5 1 mixture of the civ-olefin (345), and the trans-olefin (346) respectively in 95 % yield. Moreover, (345) could be converted to a mixture of (346) and (345) in the ratio of 10 1 by irradiation. The compounds (345) and (346) possess the skeleton of the germacranes (347), (348) and (349) 122). 

Feldman and Campbell, on the other hand, used hydrogen-bonding interactions to enforce a particular stereo- and regiochemical outcome of the sohd-state photocycloaddition of a naphthoic acid-derived cinnamic acid [45]. In a conceptually similar approach, Scheffer demonstrated that diamines can form double salts with a variety of trans-cinnamic acid derivatives. The locking in place of the double bonds steers the sohd-state [2+2] photodimerization [46]. 

When benzophenone is irradiated in either cis- or trans-2-butene solution, the photocycloaddition yields essentially the same mixture of both isomeric oxetanes, 40 and 41, before significant isomerization of the starting olefin occurs.37 This result strongly supports a mechanism involving the diradical 39. Since 39 was undoubtedly formed initially in the triplet state (from the n,ir triplet) spin inversion was necessary before bonding. There is no evidence pertaining to the formation of this intermediate from the n,n singlet. 

There are some cases where both types of photocycloaddition take place. For example, cinnamaldehyde and crotonaldehyde yield, upon irradiation with 2-methyl-2-butene, both the oxetane and the cyclobutane products.26 In marked contrast, mesityl oxide, as similar as it would appear to be to crotonaldehyde (Table I), is stable to irradiation in the presence of both isobutylene and isopropanol.37,74 These differences in reactivity of a,/9-unsaturated carbonyl compounds have been attributed to conformational (that is, s-cis or s-trans) differences.74... 

Another characteristic of photocycloaddition to electron-rich alkenes is the loss of any stereochemistry of the starting alkene in the oxetane structure. An example is the formation of practically the same mixture of geometric isomers of 2,2-diphenyl-3,4-dimethyloxetane from benzophenone and either cis- or trans- 2-butene (equation 103). This is understandable on the basis of the diradical intermediate having a sufficiently long lifetime for bond rotations to occur. 

At present, it is common knowledge that not only the photoreactivity, but also the stereochemistry, of the photoproduct is predictable from crystallographic information of starting olefin substrates. This ability of olefinic crystals to dimerize has been widely applied to the topochemical photocycloaddition polymerization of conjugated diolefinic compounds, so called "four-center type photopolymerizations" (7,8). All the photopolymerizable diolefin crystals are related to the center of symmetry mode (centrosymmetric -type crystal) and thus give polymers having cyclobutanes with a 1,3-trans configuration in the main chain on irradiation. 

Surface adsorption can also influence observed stereochemistry in a profound way. In enone photocycloadditions on silica gel and on alumina, the reaction which normally occurs from the less hindered alpha face is shifted toward the more hindered beta face, Eq. (9) Adsorption thus apparently disfavors conformational inversion in the intermediate biradical, as is required for formation of trans-fused products. The magnitude of the effect is sufficient to be synthetically useful the above reaction represents a complete reversal of stereochemistry from that observed in methanolic solution... 

That the cycloaddition occurs via the less highly polar exciplex is also supported by Kaupp s studies of photocycloaddition between trans-stilbene and cyclic unsaturated ethers (57). 

Addition to six-membered oxygen heterocycles is also common. The photocycloaddition of 5,7-dimethoxycoumarin to tetramethylethylene has been described,269 and 4-hydroxycoumarin (326) undergoes facile addition to cyclohexene on direct irradiation to give the cyclobutane (327)270 analogous additions to a variety of other alkenes have been reported, and the cycloaddition of 4-methoxycoumarin to 2-methylpropene has been employed in a synthesis of l,2-dihydrocyclobuta[c]coumarin.271 Photoaddition of the 1,2-bisenol lactone (328) to tran.s-stilbene yields propellane (329),272 and [ 2 + 2] cycloaddition is observed along with other competing photoreactions on irradiation of chromone in the presence of alkenes.273... 

The intermolecular photocycloaddition of alkenes to cyclic enones was found to afford cis- and trans-fused bicyclic systems. This stereoselectivity and the diastereofacial selectivity of chiral alkenes and/or enones is discussed below. 

The first model was used later on to rationalize the experimental fact that photocycloaddition of ethylene to the trans -fused enone 182 proceeded smoothly while the cis-fused... 

One of the secondary reactions that ortho adducts from alkenes and benzene or benzene derivatives may undergo is formation of a tetraene, by complete ring opening. The process was first described by Atkinson et al. [73] in their report on the ortho photocycloaddition of benzonitrile to 2-methylbut-2-ene (Scheme 49). They did not detect the tetraenes among the irradiation products, but found it when they pyrolyzed or photolyzed the ortho adduct. Pyrolysis at 128°C gave 53% alkene, 6% benzonitrile, and 41% tetraene photolysis caused almost complete reconversion (90%) to arene and alkene, whereas formation of tetraene occurred to the extent of 8-10%. Most likely a mixture of cis and trans isomers of 2-methyl-... 

Farid et al. reported the formation of two types of (4 + 2) photocycloadduct of 9,10-dicyanoanthracene (DCA) with 3-carbomethoxy-l,2-diphenylpropene [192,193], The product ratio depends on the solvent polarity. In benzene, exo-125 is selectively obtained via exciplex (Scheme 38). In acetonitrile, endo-125 is obtained as a sole product via the radical ion pair. Photochemical reactions of DCA with 1,2-diarylcyclopropanes gave (4 + 3) cycloadducts [194,195], In degassed acetonitrile solution, (4 + 3) photocycloaddition occurred to give cis and trans cycloadducts in a 3 1 ratio in good chemical yields, although the quantum yields... 

Orfanopoulos et al. studied the photochemical reaction of alkenes, aryalkenes, dienes dienones, and acyclic enones with [60]fullerene to obtain various substituted cyclobutylfullerenes [240,241,243,247], For example, the photocycloaddition of cis- and Irans-1 -(p-mcthoxyphenyl)-1 -propenc 68 to C6o gives only the trans [2 + 2] adducts (Scheme 27), thus the reaction is stereospecific for the most thermodynamically stable cycloadduct. A possible mechanism includes the formation of a common dipolar or biradical intermediate between 3C o and the arylalkene. Subsequent fast rotation of the aryl moiety around the former double bond leads exclusively to the trans-69 [2 + 2] adduct. Irradiation of this product, yielded 90% trans-68,10% cis-68 and cycloreversion products. Thus, a concerted mechanism can be excluded because the photocycloreversion is expected to give the trans-68 as the only product. These results can be explained by the formation of a common dipolar or diradical intermediate. Similarly, cycloreversion products from C6o and tetraalkoxyethylene... 

The lack of reactivity of the aryloxazolinones (65) in photocycloaddition to many of the olefins other than 1,1-dimethoxyethene and furan probably results from efficient decay of E2 or D. Exciplex E2 and diradical D are proposed as intermediates in these cases for several reasons. Exciplex formation is most likely dependent on olefin ionization potential, and the ionization potential of many of the un-reactive olefins are intermediate between the ionization potential of furan and 1,1-dimethoxyethene as determined from the maxima of tetracynoethylene olefin charge transfer bands60 66,67. Although ds-2-butene does not form a cycloadduct with 2-phenyl-2-oxazolin-4-one (65a), ds-2-butene is isomerized to rram-2-butene during the irradiation52. Cis-trans isomerization is expected from decay of a triplet diradical. Decay of the exciplex and diradical intermediates in competition with reaction presumably results from steric hindrance from the aryl substituent. The olefins which give cycloadducts, furan and 1,1-dimethoxyethene, are expected to produce low steric hindrance with the aryl substituent in an exciplex or diradical. 

A phase-selective photochemical reaction of 2-pyridones is observed. Irradiation of 225 in benzene gives mainly rearrangement products 226, whereas, in the solid state, [4+4] photocycloaddition to the photodimer 227 occurred in quantitative yield (Scheme 39) <20040L683>. The stereochemistry of the photodimer was exclusively the trans- /+configuration, as shown. This is presumably due to Jt-rt-stacking and dipole-dipole interactions between the pyridones. Intermolecular photocycloaddition of 2-pyridone mixtures can be selective and lead to useful quantities of [4+4] cycloaddition cross-products <1999JOC950>. 

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