With 2-Chloromethyl-2-alkynyloxiranes

Disodium telluride, prepared from tellurium and sodium borohydride in water, and 2-chloromethyl-2-alkynyloxiranes reacted in aqueous methanol at — 40° to yield 2-R-4-hydroxymethyltellurophenes.  

When sodium telluride, prepared from tellurium and sodium formaldehydesulfoxylate, was used in these reactions, acetylenic allyl alcohols were isolated as the major products.  

Tellurium tetrachloride and 1,4-dilithiotetraphenyl-l,3-butadiene combined in diethyl ether at 20° to form tetraphenyltellurophene. No other tellurophene derivative has yet been prepared by this route. 

During the reaction, the expected tetraphenyltellurophene dichloride must have been reduced to tetraphenyltellurophene. 

Tetraphenyltellurophene A suspension of 1,4-dilithiotetraphenyl-l,3-butadicne in 100 ml of diethyl ether is prepared from 10 g (56 mmol) ofdiphenylacetylene and an excess of lithium. To this stirred suspension at 20° are added, over 15 min, 5.3 g (19.7 mmol) of tellurium tetrachloride dissolved in 150 ml of dry diethyl ether. The greenish reaction mixture is poured into a mixture of dichloromethane and water, the organic phase is separated, filtered through kieselgur, dried with anhydrous magnesium sulfate, filtered, and evaporated. The residue is recrystallized from dichloromethane/ethanol (charcoal) yield 5.35 g (56%) m.p. 239°. 

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