Efficient asymmetric epoxidation of alpha,beta-unsaturated ketones using a soluble triblock polyethylene glycol-polyamino acid catalyst

[reaction: see text]. Polyethylene glycol (PEG)-bound poly-L-leucine acts as a THF-soluble catalyst for the Juliá-Colonna asymmetric epoxidation of enones. Excellent enantioselectivities may be obtained even with short chain length polyleucine. FT-IR investigations have determined that the catalytically active polyleucine components of these copolymers have an alpha-helical structure.     

Redox reactions on columns

In a study of redox reactions on columns, the work of Cerrai and Testa has been extended. It has been shown that insolubility of the redox compound is the most important factor and that adsorptive forces play little or no part. A useful redox column method for the determination of iron and vanadium, which compares favourably with that using a Jones reductor column, has been developed. The redox potentials of several substituted hydroquinones have been measured.     

Kinetics and mechanism of aromatic thalliation and mercuriation-an NMR study

The rates of reaction of Tl (III) tris(trifluoroacetate) with benzene toluene and t-butylbenzene in solvent trifluoroacetic acid have been measured by an NMR method. The reaction products have been unambiguously determined from the thallium-hydrogen coupling constants. In the case of toluene, p-tolylthallium bis(trifluoroacetate) crystallised from reaction mixtures.Thalliation was shown to be reversible and to be between one and two orders of magnitude slower than mercuriation. The inductive order of the reactivity (tBu > Me ? H) was found in contrast to the hyperconjugative order for mercuriation. Hammett plots using σ⁺ values yielded a ? value of ?7.4 but the limited data correlated better with σ values (? = ?12.8). A primary isotope effect of 5.0 was found for toluene indicating rate-determining proton transfer. The mechanism is discussed in the light of these and other findings. In addition the rates of interconversion of the products of mercuriation of toluene are reported from NMR data.     

Coulomb interaction in the one-dimensional free-electron model

In the limiting case of the free-electron theory where the electron motion is constricted to one dimension, the one-dimensional Coulomb potential gives rise to divergent interaction integrals. It is shown that a proposal by Olszewski to remove the divergenses by first evaluating the integrals in the three-dimensional case and then passing to the limit of one dimension only is incorrect, and that convergent integrals may only be obtained by suitably modifying the original one-dimensional Coulomb potential between particles.

---

Zusammenfassung In dem Grenzfall des Modells der Freien Elektronen, in dem die Elektronenbewegung auf eine Dimension eingeschrÄnkt ist, ergibt das eindimensionale Coulombpotential divergente Wechselwirkungsintegrale. Es wird gezeigt, da\ ein Vorschlag von Olszewski zur Aufhebung der Divergenz durch übergang von dreidimensionalen zum eindimensionalen Integral falsch ist. Konvergente Integrale können nur durch geeignete VerÄnderung des ursprünglichen eindimensionalen Coulombpotentials erhalten werden.

---

Résumé Dans le cas limite de la théorie de l'électron libre à une dimension, le potentiel coulombien donne lieu à des intégrales d'interaction divergentes. On montre que la proposition d'Oszewski pour éliminer les divergences, en évaluant d'abord les intégrales tridimensionnelles et en passant à la limite à une dimension, est incorrecte et que des intégrales convergentes ne peuvent Être obtenues qu'en modifiant le potentiel coulombien unidimensionnel entre particules.

     

Reactions of ketenes with ethoxyalkynes: Synthesis of 2,2,4-trialkylcyclobutane-1,3-diones

Treatment of dimethyl ketene with ethoxyacetylene 1a, 1-ethoxyoct-1-yne 1b, and 1-ethoxytetrade-1-yne 1c afforded the 3-ethoxycyclobutenones 2a–c. Hydrolysis of 2a–c with dilute hydrochloric acid gave the cyclobutane-1,3-diones 3a–c. The ¹H NMR spectra of these compounds indicate that in CDCl₃ solution 2,2-dimethylcyclobutane-1,3-dione 3a exists as the diketone, whereas the 2,2,4-trialkylcyclobutane-1,3-diones 3b and 3c exist as the monoenols.     

The mass spectra of some silver salts

Fifteen of twenty-four silver(I) carboxylates examined give useful electron impact mass spectra. The compounds vaporize at moderate temperatures, apparently mainly as dimer with traces of higher oligomer in only a few cases. The molecular ion for the dimer is generally weak or absent, with the most abundant silver containing ion being [Ag₂(O₂CR)]⁺ in most cases. Metastable defocusing and deuterium labeling experiments on silver acetate have established some of the fragmentation pathways. The reported loss of carbon dioxide from perfluorocarboxylates to give intense peaks for organosilver ions was not observed in this study. Attempts to obtain spectra on the silver salts of organic materials other than carboxylic acids were successful in several cases. Silver trifluoromethanesulfonate, although much less volatile, gives a spectrum and fragmentation very much like the carboxylates, whereas silver trifluoromethanethiolate gives a complex spectrum which suggests tetramer as a major gas phase species. Of three compounds examined which have silver to nitrogen bonding only silver(II) phthalocyanine is sufficiently volatile to give a spectrum without decomposition. The field desorption spectra of the four compounds examined all show the ions Ag_nX_{n ? 1} for X=acetate (n=1 ? 6), X=p-chlorobenzoate (n=1 ? 4), X=methanesulfonate (n=1 ? 7) and X=p-toluenesulfonate (n=1 ? 5).     

Correlation of thermodynamic stabilities of charge transfer complexes of anthracene and chloranil with those of tetra-cyanoethylene

The formation constants of charge-transfer complexes of a number of 9- and 9,10-substituted anthracenes with chloranil have been measured by a spectrophotometric method and the corresponding thermodynamic parameters ΔG°_c, ΔH°_c and ΔS°_c evaluated in various solvents. v_max values of the chargetransfer band for chloranil were linearly related to those for tetracyanoethylene (TCNE). Good correlations were also obtained between v_max and the corresponding ionisation potentials Ip of the donor molecules. In addition ΔG°_c varied linearly with Ip and from these correlations, values of ΔG°_c, etc. for the corresponding TCNE complexes could be calculated. These values are otherwise very difficult to obtain due to the high reactivity of TCNE.     

Mixed-metal cluster chemistry. 28. Core enlargement of tungsten-iridium clusters with alkynyl, ethyndiyl, and butadiyndiyl reagents

Reaction of [WIr3(mu-CO)3(CO)8(eta-C5Me5)] (1c) with [W(C[triple bond]CPh)(CO)3(eta-C5H5)] afforded the edge-bridged tetrahedral cluster [W2Ir3(mu4-eta2-C2Ph)(mu-CO)(CO)9(eta-C5H5)(eta-C5Me5)] (3) and the edge-bridged trigonal-bipyramidal cluster [W3Ir3(mu4-eta2-C2Ph)(mu-eta2-C=CHPh)(Cl)(CO)8(eta-C5Me5)(eta-C5H5)2] (4) in poor to fair yield. Cluster 3 forms by insertion of [W(C[triple bond]CPh)(CO)3(eta-C5H5)] into Ir-Ir and W-Ir bonds, accompanied by a change in coordination mode from a terminally bonded alkynyl to a mu4-eta2 alkynyl ligand. Cluster 4 contains an alkynyl ligand interacting with two iridium atoms and two tungsten atoms in a mu4-eta2 fashion, as well as a vinylidene ligand bridging a W-W bond. Reaction of [WIr3(CO)11(eta-C5H5)] (1a) or 1c with [(eta-C5H5)(CO)2 Ru(C[triple bond]C)Ru(CO)2(eta-C5H5)] afforded [Ru2WIr3(mu5-eta2-C2)(mu-CO)3(CO)7(eta-C5H5)2(eta-C5R5)] [R = H (5a), Me (5c)] in low yield, a structural study of 5a revealing a WIr3 butterfly core capped and spiked by Ru atoms; the diruthenium ethyndiyl precursor has undergone Ru-C scission, with insertion of the C2 unit into a W-Ir bond of the cluster precursor. Reaction of [W2Ir2(CO)10(eta-C5H5)2] with the diruthenium ethyndiyl reagent gave [RuW2Ir2{mu4-eta2-(C2C[triple bond]C)Ru(CO)2(eta-C5H5)}(mu-CO)2(CO)6(eta-C5H5)3] (6) in low yield, a structural study of 6 revealing a butterfly W2Ir2 unit capped by a Ru(eta-C5H5) group resulting from Ru-C scission; the terminal C2 of a new ruthenium-bound butadiyndiyl ligand has been inserted into the W-Ir bond. Reaction between 1a, [WIr3(CO)11(eta-C5H4Me)] (1b), or 1c and [(eta-C5H5)(CO)3W(C[triple bond]CC[triple bond]C)W(CO)3(eta-C5H5)] afforded [W2Ir3{mu4-eta2-(C2C[triple bond]C)W(CO)3(eta-C5H5)}(mu-CO)2(CO)2(eta-C5H5)(eta-C5R5)] [R = H (7a), Me (7c); R5 = H4Me (7b)] in good yield, a structural study of 7c revealing it to be a metallaethynyl analogue of 3.     

Asymmetric synthesis of the cis- and trans-stereoisomers of 4-aminopyrrolidine-3-carboxylic acid and 4-aminotetrahydrofuran-3-carboxylic acid

The diastereoselective conjugate addition of lithium (S)-N-benzyl-N-[small alpha]-methylbenzylamide has been successfully applied to the first asymmetric syntheses of cis-(3S,4R)- and trans-(3R,4R)-4-aminotetrahydrofuran-3-carboxylic acids (26% and 25% overall yield respectively, >98% d.e. and >97% e.e. in each case). Furthermore, the most efficient asymmetric synthesis to date of cis-(3R,4R)- and trans-(3R,4S)-4-aminopyrrolidine carboxylic acids is delineated: for cis-(3R,4R), four steps, >98% d.e., 52% overall yield; for trans-(3R,4S), five steps, >98% d.e., 50% overall yield.