Tris-dimethylaminophosphine

Studies on the synthesis of [l,2,4,3]triazaphospholo[l,5-tf]pyridines have been reported by Schmidpeter et al. <1993JPR458, 1994PS381, 1995ZNB558>. The reaction pathway starts from 2-aminopyridine 147 which is first subjected to an Anamination reaction to give 1,2-diaminopyridinium iodide 148, and this compound is treated with tris-dimethylaminophosphine to yield the five-membered phosphorus-containing heterocycle 149. 

Many other aliphatic or aromatic amines produce the same reaction. However if N-alkyl (or aryl)2-aniline is made to react with tris-dimethylaminophosphine, tricoordinated phosphorus compounds are obtained. Their analyses and mass spectra show that they are tetramers (5) when the energy of the ionizing electron beam is nearly 70 eV the mass spectra of the oligomers show an intense [M] peak which corresponds to the monomer ion (n = 1) but when the spectra are obtained by field desorption m.s. the molecular ion peak corresponds to a tetramer (n = 4) one sees also smaller peaks for ions n = 3, 2 or 1. 

The reaction of S,S,S-(136) with tris-dimethylaminophosphine/PCl3 in CH3CN at 0°C gave the chiral azaphosphatrane (137) in overall 56% yield. Unfortunately (137) did not induce asymmetry in mandelonitrile formed from the catalyzed reaction of Me3SiCN with PhCHO. It was also inefficient in catalyzing the addition of alkyl cyanide to benzaldehyde, and was not sufficiently basic to effect rearrangement of cyclohexene oxide to 2-cyclohexenol. Further experiments with analogues of (137) are promised for future publications. 

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