Reactions of Alkenediazonium Salts. Part 1. 2,2-Diethoxyethene-diazonium hexachloroantimonate: A diazonium,a carbenium or an oxonium salt?

Reactions of the title compound 1 with various nucleophiles have been studied. The salt behaves like an alkylating agent towards ethers, alcohols and water forming ethyl diazoacetate ( 2 ), which reacts further with excess of the nucleophile. A solvent cage mechanism accounting for the observed products is proposed. Thermal decomposition in inert solvents leads to the alkylation of the counter-ion, i.e. formation of chloroethane, and in anisole, alkylation and chlorination of the solvent are also observed. With a standard coupling component, 2-naphtholate ion, no azo coupling reaction of 1 is observed, but instead 14-methyl-14 H-dibenzo[a,j]xanthene ( 17 ) is formed. The products of the reaction with diethylamine are diethylcyanoformamide ( 18 ) and ethyl diethylcarbamate ( 19 ). None of the chemistry of salt 1 is explained by the intervention of vinyl cations expected to be formed in a heteroytic dediazoniation. The predominant pathways seem to involve reactions of an oxonium salt (alkylating properties) or, in the case of diethylamine, a carbenium salt (primary nucleophilic attack on the β-C-atom of 1 ). The free energy barrier to C?C rotation in 1 is estimated to be 75 to 77 kJ/mol (18.0 to 18.5 kcal/mol), a value which falls between those expected for a double and a single bond.