Ylide compounds alternative procedures

Procedures which utilize selenides are similar, but a-lithio selenides are not generally preparable via simple deprotonation chemistry, due to facile selenium-lithium exchange. - Selenium-stabilized anions are available, however, by transmetalladon reactions of selenium acetals and add readily to carbonyl compounds. The use of branched selenium-stabilized anions has been shown to result exclusively in 1,2-addidon to unhindered cyclohexenones, in contrast to the analogous sulfur ylides. The resulting 3-hydroxy selenides undergo elimination by treatment with base after activation by alkylation or oxidation (Scheme 10). An alternative method of activating either p-hydroxy selenides or sulfides toward elimination involves treatment of a chloroform solution of the adduct with thallium ethoxide (Scheme 11). A mechanism involving the intermediacy of a selenium ylide is proposed. 

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