Cover Picture: Measuring the Relative Reactivity of the Carbon–Hydrogen Bonds of Alkanes as Nucleophiles (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 42/2018)
Experimental and Computational Studies of Hydrogen Bonding and Proton Transfer to [Cp*Fe(dppe)H]
The present contribution reports experimental and computational investigations of the interaction between [Cp*Fe(dppe)H] and different proton donors (HA). The focus is on the structure of the proton transfer intermediates and on the potential energy surface of the proton transfer leading to the dihydrogen complex [Cp*Fe(dppe)(H2)]+. With p-nitrophenol (PNP) a UV/Visible study provides evidence of the formation of the ion-pair stabilized by a hydrogen bond between the nonclassical cation [Cp*Fe(dppe)(H2)]+ and the homoconjugated anion ([AHA]-). With trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), the hydrogen-bonded ion pair containing the simple conjugate base (A-) in equilibrium with the free ions is observed…
A Quantitative Model for Alkane Nucleophilicity Based on C−H Bond Structural/Topological Descriptors
A first quantitative model for calculating the nucleophilicity of alkanes is described. A statistical treatment was applied to the analysis of the reactivity of 29 different alkane C−H bonds towards in situ generated metal carbene electrophiles. The correlation of the recently reported experimental reactivity with two different sets of descriptors comprising a total of 86 parameters was studied, resulting in the quantitative descriptor‐based alkane nucleophilicity (QDEAN) model. This model consists of an equation with only six structural/topological descriptors, and reproduces the relative reactivity of the alkane C−H bonds. This reactivity can be calculated from parameters emerging from th…
Competitive and Selective Csp3Br versus Csp2Br Bond Activation in Palladium-Catalysed Suzuki Cross-Coupling: An Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Role of Phosphine Ligands
Phosphine ligands have been demonstrated to have an effect on reactivity and selectivity in the competitive intramolecular palladium-catalysed Suzuki-Miyaura coupling of dibromo sulfoxide 1a possessing two different hybridised electrophilic carbons. It was found that the bromine bond to the sp(3)-hybridised carbon is selectively replaced in the presence of unhindered phosphines such as PPh(3) or xantphos. The use of hindered phosphine ligands such as P(o-tol)(3) and P(1-naphthyl)(3) reversed the selectivity, conducting the cross-coupling at the Csp(2)-Br. Identical trends were observed in external competition experiments carried out with bromomethyl sulfoxide and different substituted bromo…
Titelbild: Measuring the Relative Reactivity of the Carbon–Hydrogen Bonds of Alkanes as Nucleophiles (Angew. Chem. 42/2018)
Functionalization of CnH2n+2Alkanes: Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Enhances the Reactivity towards Primary Carbon-Hydrogen Bonds
The functionalization of the primary sites of alkanes is one of the more challenging areas in catalysis. In this context, a novel effect has been discovered that is responsible for an enhancement in the reactivity of the primary C-H bonds of alkanes in a catalytic system. The copper complex Cu(NCMe) (=hydrotris{[3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)-4-bromo]-pyrazol-1-yl}borate) catalyzes the functionalization of CnH2n+2 with ethyl diazoacetate upon inserting the CHCO2Et unit into C-H bonds. In addition, the selectivity of the reaction toward the primary sites significantly increased relative to that obtained in neat alkane upon using supercritical carbon dioxide as the reaction medium. This was attribu…
Measuring the Relative Reactivity of the Carbon-Hydrogen Bonds of Alkanes as Nucleophiles
We report quantitative measurements of the relative reactivities of a series of C-H bonds of gaseous or liquid CnH2n+2 alkanes (n = 1-8, 29 different C-H bonds) towards insitu generated electrophiles (copper, silver, and rhodium carbenes), with methane as the reference. This strategy surpasses the drawback of previous model reactions of alkanes with strong electrophiles suffering from C-C cleavage processes, which precluded direct comparison of the relative reactivities of alkane C-H bonds.