Heterocyclization of electrophilic alkenes with tetranitromethane revisited: regiochemistry and the mechanism of nitroisoxazole formation

Revised regiochemistry for the heterocyclization of electrophilic alkenes with tetranitromethane (TNM) in the presence of triethylamine, providing rapid access to nitroisoxazoles, is reported. The formation of 5-nitroisoxazoles previously incorrectly assigned as 3-nitro regioisomers, has now been established unambiguously by X-ray crystallography. Empirical computations with ACD/CNMR Predictor, based both on hierarchical ordering of spherical environments (HOSE) and an algorithm of artificial neural networks (ANN), and also Density Functional Theory computations of the ¹³C NMR chemical shifts for the 3- versus 5-nitroisoxazoles are shown to consistently match the spectra of the experimentally observed 5-regioisomers.     

Disclosing the Structure/Activity Correlation in Trivalent Boron‐Containing Compounds: A Tendency Map

Most trivalent boron reagents are electrophiles owing to the vacancy for two electrons to fill the outer orbital of boron; however, interestingly, trivalent boron compounds can change their electrophilic character to a nucleophilic character by only changing the nature of the substituents on the boron atoms. With the help of computational tools, we have analyzed the structural‐ and electronic properties of boryl fragments that were either bonded to main‐group metals or coordinated to transition‐metals/rare‐earth‐metals and we have designed a map that might help to identify certain trends. This trend map will be useful for selecting an appropriate trivalent boron compound, depending on the sought reactivity.