Asymmetric Samarium-Reformatsky Reaction of Chiral alpha-Bromoacetyl-2-oxazolidinones with Aldehydes.

The samarium(II) iodide mediated asymmetric Reformatsky-type reaction of chiral 3-bromoacetyl-2-oxazolidinones with various aldehydes was studied. A series of chiral 4-substituted 2-oxazolidinones 1-3 and 5,5-disubstituted "SuperQuat" oxazolidinones 4-5 were employed as chiral auxiliaries of the alpha-bromoacetic acid. The reaction of 1 with various aldehydes gave the alpha-unbranched beta-hydroxy carboximides in good yields with high diastereomeric excess values (up to >99% de). The majority of the reaction product derived from 5,5-diphenyl SuperQuat 5 were highly crystallinity; a single recrystallization yielding a diastereomerically pure product with the other diastereomer not detectable by spectroscopic methods. The absolute configurations of the beta-hydroxy carboximides were determined by signs of optical rotations of the corresponding known ethyl esters referring to the literature values. Hydrolytic cleavage of the appended of beta-hydroxy moieties from the auxiliary SuperQuats was readily achieved under mild conditions using lithium hydroxide; the corresponding carboxylic acids and the returned SuperQuats were obtained in good yields without any evidence of racemization. The first step of the reaction is the reduction of the alpha-bromo group to produce the samarium enolate, which adds to an aldehyde. The absolute configuration of the adduct (7i) derive from benzaldehyde was found to be R, with the samarium enolate favoring the transition state predicted from chelation control of the reagent; this is in analogy to the discussion that has been used for the corresponding titanium enolate. The stereochemistry of the reaction may be explained by incorporating the Nerz-Stormes-Thornton chair transition structure model.

Superacid-Catalyzed Reductive Friedel-Crafts Reaction of Arenes Using Arenecarbaldehyde Acetals.

Reaction of 2-aryl-1,3-dioxane with arenes in the presence of a catalytic amount of trifluoromethanesulfonic acid gave the corresponding diarylmethanes in good to excellent yields. The acid-catalyzed Friedel-Crafts benzylation of arenes could altenatively be carried out using arenecarbaldehyde and 1,3-propanediol. The reaction was assumed to proceed through a redox process involving hydride shift from the cyclic acetal moiety to the benzylic carbon. The hydride shift was confirmed by the reaction with 5-ethyl-2-phenyl-4,4,6,6-tetradeuterio-1,3-dioxane, wherein more than 90% deuterium was incorporated into the benzylic carbon of the diphenylmethane. Diphenylmethyl ether Ph(2)CHOCH(2)CH(2)CH(2)OH also reacted with benzene to afford diphenylmethane under the same reaction conditions, suggesting that the ether should be the plausible intermediate that underwent the hydride shift.