Lithiated Fluorinated Styrene Oxides: Configurational Stability, Synthetic Applications, and Mechanistic Insight

2-Diphenylphosphinomethyl-3-methylpyrazine

The lateral metalation-electrophilic trapping reaction of alkyl-substituted pyrazines has always been challenging and poorly regioselective, with the corresponding derivatives often being isolated in moderate yield. In this contribution, we first report on the preparation of an unsymmetrically-substituted pyrazine, that is 2-diphenylphosphinomethyl-3-methylpyrazine, by subjecting to metalation with n-BuLi the commercially available 2,3-dimethylpyrazine, followed by interception of the putative lithiated benzyl-type intermediate with Ph2PCl. Such a functionalization has been successfully carried out in the absence of additional ligands, working either in THF at −78 °C or in a more environmentally friendly solvent like cyclopentyl methyl ether at 0 °C, with the desired phosphine derivative being isolated in 70–85% yield. The newly synthesized adduct has been fully characterized by means of multinuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic techniques, and also by preparing a selenium derivative, which furnished single crystals that were suitable for X-ray analysis.

Advances in deep eutectic solvents and water: applications in metal- and biocatalyzed processes, in the synthesis of APIs, and other biologically active compounds

This review highlights recent advances in metal- and biocatalyzed transformations, in the synthesis of APIs and other biologically active compounds, when employing deep eutectic solvents and water as environmentally responsible solvents.

A Bottom Up Approach Towards Artificial Oxygenases by Combining Iron Coordination Complexes and Peptides

The combination of peptides and a chiral iron coordination complex catalyzes high yield highly asymmetric epoxidation with aqueous hydrogen peroxide.

Supramolecular systems resulting from the combination of peptides and a chiral iron coordination complex catalyze asymmetric epoxidation with aqueous hydrogen peroxide, providing good to excellent yields and high enantioselectivities in short reaction times. The peptide is shown to play a dual role; the terminal carboxylic acid assists the iron center in the efficient H₂O₂ activation step, while its β-turn structure is crucial to induce high enantioselectivity in the oxygen delivering step. The high level of stereoselection (84–92% ee) obtained by these supramolecular catalysts in the epoxidation of 1,1′-alkyl ortho-substituted styrenes, a notoriously challenging class of substrates for asymmetric catalysis, is not attainable with any other epoxidation methodology described so far. The current work, combining an iron center ligated to N and O based ligands, and a peptide scaffold that shapes the second coordination sphere, may be seen as a bottom up approach towards the design of artificial oxygenases.

Uncatalyzed CO2Li-Mediated SNAr Reaction of Unprotected Benzoic Acids via Silicon Trickery

The alkyl and aryllithium nucleophilic aromatic substitution (SNAr) displacement of a fluoro or methoxy group from unprotected 2-fluoro/methoxybenzoic acids is discussed. It was discovered that a TMS group located at the C6-position ortho to the carboxyl group shields effectively the carboxylate against nucleophilic attack, thus reducing dramatically ketone formation, and reorients nucleophilic substitution to the C2-position. The reactions with fluoro-substituted substrate 7 proceed efficiently; in contrast, the use of methoxy-functionalized benzoic acid 8 only affords moderate yields with s-BuLi and PhLi. This uncatalyzed coupling reaction, which provides a direct access to biaryl compounds, presumably proceeds by an addition–elimination sequence via intermediate formation of a resonance-stabilized pentavalent silalactone-Meisenheimer complex.

Trapping of carbolithiation-derived tertiary benzylic α-lithio piperidines with carbon electrophiles: Controlling the formation of α-amino quaternary and vicinal stereocenters

The interception of carbolithiation-derived tertiary benzylic α-lithio piperidines with carbon electrophiles has led to the diastereoselective synthesis of vicinally functionalized piperidines bearing α-amino quaternary stereocenters.

Regioselective desymmetrization of diaryltetrahydrofurans via directed ortho-lithiation: an unexpected help from green chemistry

An efficient functionalization of diaryltetrahydrofurans via a regioselective THF-directed ortho-lithiation is first described. This reaction can be successfully carried out in cyclopentyl methyl ether as a "greener" alternative to Et2O, with better results in terms of yield and selectivity and, surprisingly, also in protic eutectic mixtures competitively with protonolysis.

“The Great Beauty” of organolithium chemistry: a land still worth exploring

This Frontier highlights and analyses, from the authors’ perspective, some recent selected contributions from the organolithium field with an eye towards new challenging research directions.

Dynamic resolution of lithiated ortho-trifluoromethyl styrene oxide and the effect of chiral diamines on the barrier to enantiomerisation

The first dynamic thermodynamic resolution of a racemic oxiranyllithium is described with selectivities of up to 82 : 18 from a selection of three types of chiral ligands (seven ligands in total). Both (-)-sparteine and its (+)-surrogate were surprisingly found to increase the enantiomerisation barrier.

2-Lithiated-2-phenyloxetane: a new attractive synthon for the preparation of oxetane derivatives

A valuable and direct method to access 2-substituted-2-phenyloxetanes by electrophilic quenching of the corresponding 2-lithiated derivative has, for the first time, been described. 2-Lithiated-2-phenyloxetane was found to be configurationally unstable. Evidence is presented to show that electron-transfer processes are also operative in the coupling reactions with electrophiles.