Water exchange with enol

Kobayashi et al. studied the catalytic activity of many metal salts in Mukaiyama-aldol reactions in aqueous THE They came to the conclusion that the catalytic activity of a metal in aqueous media should be related both to the hydrolysis constant, /Ch, and water exchange rate constant (WERC) of the metal [8]. All metals with good catalytic activity had p/Ch values ranging between 4.3 and 10.08 and WERC > 3.2 X 10 s This was because when for a metal is < 4.3, the metal cation is readily hydrolyzed to generate oxonium ion, which then helps the decomposition of the silyl enol ethers. When pMh > 10.08 the Lewis acidity of the metal is too low to promote the reaction. When the WERC is < 3.2 x 10 m s, exchange of water molecules seldom occurred and aldehydes had a very little chance to coordinate to the metal to be activated. The metals which fulfill these criteria are Sc(III), Fe(II), Cu(II), Zn(ll), Y(IIl), Cd(Il), Ln(Ill) and Pb(ll). 

Transacetalization acetal exchange with acetals, orthoesters, or enol ethers, avoiding the formation of water... 

The beta Diketones are readily soluble in carbon tetrachloride and deuterochloroform. Because these solvents are least likely to contain large amounts of water which could exchange with and mask the enol -OH resonance, their use is preferable under normal circumstances. 

Enolization is unlikely as an essential step in the exchange since Senkus and Brown (1938) found that benzaldehyde (where enolization cannot occur) also undergoes O18 exchange with water. This has been confirmed by many later workers. The only recent studies on the exchange of... 

Certain other metal ions also exhibit catalysis in aqueous solution. Two important criteria are rate of ligand exchange and the acidity of the metal hydrate. Metal hydrates that are too acidic lead to hydrolysis of the silyl enol ether, whereas slow exchange limits the ability of catalysis to compete with other processes. Indium(III) chloride is a borderline catalysts by these criteria, but nevertheless is effective. The optimum solvent is 95 5 isopropanol-water. Under these conditions, the reaction is syn selective, suggesting a cyclic TS.63... 

Judging from these findings, the mechanism of Lewis acid catalysis in water (for example, aldol reactions of aldehydes with silyl enol ethers) can be assumed to be as follows. When metal compounds are added to water, the metals dissodate and hydration occurs immediatdy. At this stage, the intramolecular and intermolecular exchange reactions of water molecules frequently occur. If an aldehyde exists in the system, there is a chance that it will coordinate to the metal cations instead of the water molecules and the aldehyde is then activated. A silyl enol ether attacks this adivated aldehyde to produce the aldol adduct. According to this mechanism, it is expected that many Lewis acid-catalyzed reactions should be successful in aqueous solutions. Although the precise activity as Lewis acids in aqueous media cannot be predicted quantitatively... 

The chiral complex 2 also requires the use of strong bases to achieve deprotonation no exchange is observed upon treatment with sodium hydroxide-rf/water-dicarbonyl complex 1, monophosphane complexes, such as 2, undergo clean a-deprotonation at — 78 °C with butyllithium or lithium diisopropylamide to generate the enolate 7, which under-... 

Experiments on the bromination of equilibrated ketone-acetal systems in methanol were also recently performed for substituted acetophenones (El-Alaoui, 1979 Toullec and El-Alaoui, 1979). Lyonium catalytic constants fit (57), but for most of the substituents the (fcA)m term is negligible and cannot be obtained with accuracy. However, the relative partial rates for the bromination of equilibrated ketone-acetal systems can be estimated. For a given water concentration, it was observed that the enol path is more important for 3-nitroacetophenone than for 4-methoxyacetophenone. In fact, the smaller the proportion of free ketone at equilibrium, the more the enol path is followed. From these results, it can be seen that the enol-ether path is predominant even if the acetal form is of minor importance. The proportions of the two competing routes must only depend on (i) the relative stabilities of the hydroxy-and alkyoxycarbenium ions, (ii) the relative reactivities of these two ions yielding enol and enol ether, respectively, and (iii) the ratio of alcohol and water concentrations which determines the relative concentrations of the ions at equilibrium. Since acetal formation is a dead-end in the mechanism, the amount of acetal has no bearing on the relative rates. Bromination, isotope exchange or another reaction can occur via the enol ether even in secondary and tertiary alcohols, i.e. when the acetal is not stable at all because of steric hindrance. 

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