Mechanochemical Synthesis of Fluorinated Imines

A number of imines, including 12 new compounds, previously not reported in the literature, derived from variously fluorinated benzaldehydes and different anilines or chiral benzylamines were synthesized by a solvent-free mechanochemical method, which was based on the manual grinding of equimolar amounts of the substrates at the room temperature. In a very short reaction time of only 15 min, the method produced the expected products with good-to-excellent yields. The yields were comparable or significantly higher than those reported in the literature for the imines synthesized by other methods. Importantly, the conditions used for the reactions with aniline derivatives also resulted in the high yields of imines obtained from chiral benzylamines, and can be extended to the synthesis with other similar amines. Structures of all imines were confirmed by NMR spectroscopy: ¹H, ¹³C and ¹⁹F. For four compounds, X-ray structures were also obtained. The synthetic approach presented in this paper contributes to the prevention of environmental pollution and can be easily extended for larger-scale syntheses. The mechanochemical solvent-free method provides a convenient strategy particularly useful for the preparation of fluorinated imines being versatile intermediates or starting material in the synthesis of drugs and other fine chemicals.

Enantioselective Organocatalytic Amine-Isocyanate Capture-Cyclization: Regioselective Alkene Iodoamination for the Synthesis of Chiral Cyclic Ureas

Ureas of chiral diamines are prominent features of therapeutics, chiral auxiliaries, and intermediates in complex molecule synthesis. Although many methods for diamine synthesis are available, metal-free enantioselective alkene functionalizations to make protected 1,2- and 1,3-diamines from simple achiral starting materials are rare, and a single reagent that accesses a cross-section of each congener with high enantiomeric excess is not available. We describe a method to synthesize enantioenriched cyclic 5- and 6-membered ureas from allylic amines and an isocyanate using a C2-symmetric BisAmidine (BAM) catalyst that delivers N-selectivity from an ambident sulfonyl imide intermediate, overcoming electronic and steric deactivation at nitrogen. The geometry of 1,2-disubstituted alkenes is correlated to 5-exo and 6-endo cyclizations without altering alkene face selectivity, which is unexpectedly opposite that observed with O-nucleophiles. Straightforward product manipulations to diamine and imidazolidinone derivatives are underscored by the synthesis of an NK1 antagonist.

On the physical interpretation of the nuclear molecular orbital energy

Recently, several groups have extended and implemented molecular orbital (MO) schemes to simultaneously obtain wave functions for electrons and selected nuclei. Many of these schemes employ an extended Hartree-Fock approach as a first step to find approximate electron-nuclear wave functions and energies. Numerous studies conducted with these extended MO methodologies have explored various effects of quantum nuclei on physical and chemical properties. However, to the best of our knowledge no physical interpretation has been assigned to the nuclear molecular orbital energy (NMOE) resulting after solving extended Hartree-Fock equations. This study confirms that the NMOE is directly related to the molecular electrostatic potential at the position of the nucleus.

Stereospecific synthesis of C2 symmetric diamines from the mother diamine by resonance-assisted hydrogen-bond directed diaza-Cope rearrangement

Sixteen diphenylethylenediamine analogues including those with electron donating, electron withdrawing, and sterically bulky substituents have been prepared in good overall yields (70-90%) and in enantiomerically pure form (>99% ee) by diaza-Cope rearrangement reaction. A single chiral mother diamine, ((R,R)-1,2-bis-(2-hydroxyphenyl)-1,2-diaminoethane), is reacted with appropriate aldehydes to form the initial diimines that rearrange to give all the product diimines in the (S,S) form. The daughter diamines are obtained by hydrolysis of the product diimines. Density functional theory computation shows that resonance-assisted hydrogen-bond is the main driving force behind all the rearrangement reactions. Chiral high performance liquid chromatography and circular dichroism spectroscopy show that the highly stereospecific rearrangement reactions take place with apparent inversion of stereochemistry.

Efficient N-p-Methoxyphenyl Amine Deprotection through Anodic Oxidation

[reaction: see text] A new method of deprotection of N-p-methoxyphenylamines using anodic oxidation in acidic medium is presented. The process furnishes a high yield of amine and is compatible with several oxidable functional groups.