Aromatic substitution transition metal catalysis

By far the most generally useful synthetic application of allyltributyltin is in the complementary set of transition metal- and radical-mediated substitution reactions. When the halide substrates are benzylic, allylic, aromatic or acyl, transition metal catalysis is usually the method of choice for allyl transfer from tin to carbon. When the halide (or halide equivalent) substrate is aliphatic or alicyclic, radical chain conditions are appropriate, as g-hydrogen elimination is generally not a problem in these cases. 

Pd-catalyzed site-selective cross-coupling reactions demonstrate the influential role of ligands in transition metal catalysis. The reactions described in this review discuss efficient approaches to introduce various substituents at specific halo-substituted posititMis (Ml (hetero)aromatic compounds. The commercial availability of a variety of dihalo-substituted starting materials makes site-selective crosscoupling reactions practical for the rapid production of diverse (hetero)arenes with multiple substituents. In all examples described here, the reactions proceeded successfully only on substrates containing hetero atoms, and this field of chemistry aims to include substrates without hetero atoms in the substrate scope. 

The possibilities for the formation of carbon-carbon bonds involving arenes have been dramatically increased in recent years by the use of transition metal catalysis. Copper-mediated reactions to couple aryl halides in Ulknann-type reactions [12, 13] have been known for many years, and copper still remains an important catalyst [14, 15]. However, the use of metals such as palladium [16,17] to effect substitution has led to such an explosion of research that in 2011 transition metal-catalyzed processes comprised more than half of the reactions classified as aromatic substitutions in Organic Reaction Mechanisms [18]. The reactions often involve a sequence outlined in Scheme 6.6 where Ln represents ligand(s) for the palladium. Oxidative addition of the aryl halide to the paiiadium catalyst is followed by transmetalation with an aryl or alkyl derivative and by reductive elimination to give the coupled product and legeuCTate the catalyst. Part 6 of this book elaborates these and related processes. 

The development of methods for aromatic substitution based on catalysis by transition metals, especially palladium, has led to several new methods for indole synthesis. One is based on an intramolecular Heck reaction in which an... 

Benzylic oxidation of aromatic side-chains is also a well established technology in the bulk chemicals arena, e. g. toluene to benzoic acid and p-xylene to ter-ephthalic acid [1,2]. These processes involve homogeneous catalysis by, e. g., cobalt compounds, however, and also fall outside the scope of this book. Ammoxi-dation of methyl-substituted aromatic and heteroaromatic compounds is performed over heterogeneous catalysts in the gas phase but this reaction is treated elsewhere (Section 9.5). Transition metal-substituted molecular sieves have been widely studied as heterogeneous catalysts for oxidation of aromatic side-chains in the liquid phase, but there are serious doubts about their heterogeneity [5,6]. Here again, a cursory examination of the literature reveals that supported palladium seems to be the only heterogeneous catalyst with synthetic utility [4]. 

Acid catalysts, transition metal redox catalysts, and titanium zeolites are all known to be effective for phenol hydroxylation. Acid catalysis proceeds by an ionic mechanism involving an intermediate hydroxonium ion (H3O2+) whereas some transition metal ions promote the formation of hydroxyl radicals to effect substitution. However the introduction of a second hydroxyl substituent onto the aromatic nucleus tends to activate the molecule towards further reaction and this leads to the formation of unwanted, tarry by-products. The commercial solution is to use very low mole ratios of hydrogen peroxide to phenol and to recycle the unreacted phenol, ie. operate at low conversion. Some typical commercial methods are given in Table 1. 

A wide range of donor ketones, including acetone, butanone, 2-pentanone, cyclopentanone, cyclohexanone, hydroxyacetone, and fluoroacetone with an equally wide range of acceptor aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes were shown to serve as substrates for the antibody-catalyzed aldol addition reactions (Chart 2, Table 8B2.6). It is interesting to note that the aldol addition reactions of functionalized ketones such as hydroxyacetone occurs regioselectively at the site of functionaliztion to give a-substituted-P-hydroxy ketones. The nature of the electrophilic and nucleophilic substrates utilized in this process as well as the reaction conditions complement those that are used in transition-metal and enzymatic catalysis. 

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