Water alkene oxidations, palladium® chloride

PdCl2/CuCl2/02 (Wacker oxidation) (palladium chloride/cupric chloride/oxygen) Sulpholane/water RT to 100 terminal alkenes-> methyl ketones... 

The reaction is highly exothermic as one might expect for an oxidation reaction. The mechanism is shown in Figure 15.1. Palladium chloride is the catalyst, which occurs as the tetrachloropalladate in solution, the resting state of the catalyst. Two chloride ions are replaced by water and ethene. Then the key-step occurs, the attack of a second water molecule (or hydroxide) to the ethene molecule activated towards a nucleophilic attack by co-ordination to the electrophilic palladium ion. The nucleophilic attack of a nucleophile on an alkene coordinated to palladium is typical of Wacker type reactions. 

One of the earliest uses of palladium(II) salts to activate alkenes towards additions with oxygen nucleophiles is the industrially important Wacker process, wherein ethylene is oxidized to acetaldehyde using a palladium(II) chloride catalyst system in aqueous solution under an oxygen atmosphere with cop-per(II) chloride as a co-oxidant.1,2 The key step in this process is nucleophilic addition of water to the palladium(II)-complexed ethylene. As expected from the regioselectivity of palladium(II)-assisted addition of nucleophiles to alkenes, simple terminal alkenes are efficiently converted to methyl ketones rather than aldehydes under Wacker conditions. 

Dicarboxylation reactions of alkenes can be carried out such that predominately 1,2-addition of the two ester functions occurs (equation 61). The reaction takes place under mild conditions (1-3 bar, 25 C) in alcohol. It is stoichiometric in palladium, since the palladium(II) catalyst is reduced to palladium(O) in the process, but by use of an oxidant (stoichiometric copper chloride or catalytic copper chloride plus oxygen equation 62 and 63) the reaction becomes catalytic in palladium. In the reoxidation process, water is generated and the build-up of water increases the water gas shift reaction at the expense of the carboxylation. Thus a water scavenger such as triethyl orthoformate is necessary for a smooth reaction. 

P-Lactones can be obtained by oxidative carbonylation of alkenes in the presence of water. Ethylene, for example, is converted to p-propiolactone by carbonylation in aqueous acetonitrile at -20 C using a catalytic amount of PdCh and a stoichiometric quantity of copper(II) chloride (equation 37). Palladium-catalyzed carbonylation of halides can also be used to prepare p-lactones under mild conditions. The reaction takes place at room temperature and pressure in the presence of [PdCl2(PPh3)2] and has been applied to both bromides and chlorides (equations 38 and 39). 

Cuprous chloride tends to form water-soluble complexes with lower olefins and acts as an IPTC catalyst, e.g., in the two-phase hydrolysis of alkyl chlorides to alcohols with sodium carboxylate solution [10,151] and in the Prins reactions between 1-alkenes and aqueous formaldehyde in the presence of HCl to form 1,3-glycols [10]. Similarly, water-soluble rhodium-based catalysts (4-diphenylphosphinobenzoic acid and tri-Cs-io-alkylmethylam-monium chlorides) were used as IPTC catalysts for the hydroformylation of hexene, dodecene, and hexadecene to produce aldehydes for the fine chemicals market [152]. Palladium diphenyl(potassium sulfonatobenzyl)phosphine and its oxide complexes catalyzed the IPTC dehalogenation reactions of allyl and benzyl halides [153]. Allylic substrates such as cinnamyl ethyl carbonate and nucleophiles such as ethyl acetoactate and acetyl acetone catalyzed by a water-soluble bis(dibenzylideneacetone)palladium or palladium complex of sulfonated triphenylphosphine gave regio- and stereo-specific alkylation products in quantitative yields [154]. Ito et al. used a self-assembled nanocage as an IPTC catalyst for the Wacker oxidation of styrene catalyzed by (en)Pd(N03) [155]. 

The palladium(II)-catalyzed olefin carbonylation reaction was first reported more than 30 years ago in studies by Stille and co-workers and James et al. The reaction of carbon monoxide with cis- and tra 5-but-2-ene in methanol in the presence of palladium(II)-chloride and copper(II)-chloride yielded threo- and eryt/zro-3-methoxy-2-methyl-butanoate, respectively. The transformation that was based on the well-known Wacker process for oxidation of ethylene into acetaldehyde in water " is now broadly defined as the Pd(II)-catalyzed oxycarbonylation of the unsaturated carbon-carbon bonds. This domino reaction includes oxypalladation of alkenes, migratory insertion of carbon monoxide, and alkoxylation. Since the development of this process, several transformations mediated by palladium(II) compounds have been described. The direct oxidative bisfunctionalization of alkenes represents a powerful transformation in the field of chemical synthesis. Palladium(II)-promoted carbonylation of alkenes in the presence of water/alcohol may lead to alkyl carboxylic acids (hydrocarboxylation), diesters [bis(aIkoxycarbonyla-tion)], (3-alkoxy carboxylic acids (alkoxy-carboxylation), or (3-alkoxy esters (alkoxy-carbonylation or alkoxy-alkoxy-carbonylation). Particularly attractive features of these multitransformation processes include the following ... 

The Wacker oxidation of ethene to ethanal is an important industrial process for the oxygenation of a hydrocarbon feedstock. Essentially, the same process may be used to convert 1-alkenes to methyl ketones. The stoichiometry of the process is shown in Figure 23.23. The reaction is catalytic in both palladium and copper the ultimate oxidant is (inexpensive) molecular oxygen. A proposed mechanism is shown in Figure 23.24 the main controversy has been as to whether the attack of water on the coordinated alkene is external or via prior coordination of the water to palladium. Current thinking is that external attack predominates in high concentrations of chloride ion and internal attack when [CT] is low. Different details of mechanisms under the two conditions are supported by different reaction kinetics. 

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