Palladium catalyzed transformations of monoterpenes: stereoselective deuteriation and oxidative dimerization of camphene

Camphene undergoes a highly regio and stereoselective palladium catalyzed deuteriation in deuteriated acetic acid solutions of Pd(OAc)₂. NMR reveals that an outward oriented vinylic hydrogen is selectively exchanged for ²H, resulting in 90% camphene-d₁ (ca. 100% stereoselectivity) and 10% camphene-d₂ at 75% conversion of camphene (6 h, 25 °C). Neither π-allyl nor π-olefin palladium complexes are formed in detectable concentrations during the reaction, whereas palladium hydride (singlet at −6.86 ppm) and palladium deuteride (singlet at −6.78 ppm) intermediates have been detected by ¹H and ²H NMR, respectively. At higher temperature, oxidative coupling of camphene readily occurs giving the (E,E)-diene, i.e., bis(3,3-dimethyl-2-norbornylidene)ethane, which formally originates by abstracting the outward oriented vinylic hydrogens and coupling the resulting fragments of two camphene molecules. The reaction is catalytic at palladium in the Pd(OAc)₂-LiNO₃(cat)-O₂ and Pd(OAc)₂-benzoquinone systems. Similar mechanisms for the deuteriation and oxidative coupling of camphene are proposed, which involve the formation of σ-vinyl palladium hydride intermediates. No deuteriation neither oxidative coupling of limonene, myrcene and β-pinene were observed under the same conditions.